Kansas

We spent the night in Northern Oklahoma, but ended up only needing to drive 1 hour to our destination in Kansas. The drive in Kansas was very similar to Oklahoma. Its was not as clean and well maintained as Oklahoma, but still cleaner than Texas. It amazes me how you can drive for 45 minutes and not see more than 5 or 6 houses/businesses throughout KA and OK. And this isn't for 2 hours this is for the full 6. It is just full of COUNTRY...and is all just beautiful. There aren't a lot of trees, but the ones that are there, are gorgeous.

The only bad thing that has occured on our trip so far is Delaney has been car sick. She looks absolutely miserable. We have her wearing her wrist bands and holding her pink "throw up bucket" She drinks sprite and eats crackers and tries to sleep. I really do feel sorry for her because I have been there and done that too many times to count. Kaytlynn has done well so far.

We did find the prairie and it was certainly neat. We stayed for about 1.5 hours. Its a pretty small property of land. I realize that the definition of a prarie is a flat piece of land with not a lot of trees. But I think it strange that Texas is MUCH flatter than "the prairie...which is full of slight rolling hills. On the Ingalls property you are able to see a cabin that is similar to the one Laura's family lived in...it was AMAZINGLY tiny. It was maybe a 10 x 12 house. It as quite neat seeing what it looked like log by log with the clay filling in the spaces and seeing the iron nails poking through the ceiling. In the book Little House on the Praire you are able to see Pa build his little cabin...just he and Ma until Ma gets hurt, then Mr. Edwards helps out and even loans him the nails. I can't imagine. Laura and Mary's job was to pick up the nails that fell or that got bent, so that Pa could hammer them straight again so that he could use them...because they could never be wasted...just one more example of how spoiled and wasteful our society is.

We also go to go into the real post office...another extremely tiny building. It was probably a 8 x 6 building...and the customers area was only about about 3 x6....It had all the little mail boxes and little windows to go to for different purposes. It was all very neat. The kids liked playing with the little number locks for the mailboxes.

The last real building we saw was the schoolhouse. It was REALLY neat. It was a school house that was filled with things that you would see from the 1900s. One room, a piano and organ up front, a bell outside, the students desks were the wrought iron and wooden ones ... alot like the ones seen in the little house movies. The desks were really neat because they had little ones for the 5 year olds, small ones for the ones a little bigger...and then 2 larger sized desks....so it showed you just how small and large all the students were that studied in this room.

It had a book case of books, maps, small clothing articles and even some projects of what a student would have been doing in 1900.

In the very back, they had 2 interesting postings....one was of the salary of each teacher that had taught there at that school house from 1900 to about 1945. I think it started at about 20 dollars a month and gradually increased by about 5 dollars a month every year...until 1930...you could see when the depression hit because the salary started decreasing each year until about 1939.

Another posting was of rules for the teacher in 1900. The kids, and I thought it was hilarious that they expected some of these things from the teacher. Some of the ones that linger in my memory are: Teachers are not allowed to wear a dress any shorter than 2 inches from her ankle; Teachers are not allowed to get married during their contract; teachers are not allowed to go to the ice cream shoppes in town. Teachers must be in their home from 8 pm to 6 am unless given special permission by the school board. A teacher must NEVER, under any circumstances, dye her hair. There were many other rules, but this gives you a good idea!

2 other things that were neat on this property...You were able to see Pa's well. They had it boarded up but it was still quite neat to see that it was still there. Also...they had an outhouse for kids to see/sit in. My girls would not go inside it! Its like they thought the outhouse monster was going to get them. They finally stood inside for a pic once Brave Emily sat on the Potty for a picture!

They had a small farm house that had nothing to do with the Wilders and it was the gift shop. It was full of books, audio CDs, postcards, coloring books, bonnets, etc. My girls left with Laura bracelets. It has has charms of things from the book (a log cabin, Charolotte, her rag doll, Jack her bull dog, etc.) The girls loved them!