Missouri...

We drove a good 6 hours to Nixa, Missouri. We found a nice Super 8 to stay in and pretty much collapsed from exhaustion. The next day we went to Laura and Almanzo's home a few miles away in Mansfield, Missouri. This is the home that she lived in the last 40 years of her life. Almanzo built the house just for her...The kitchen is the first thing that you got to walk in and you see the little bitty countertops made just to suit her 4'11 stature! The day that she died her daughter had the house closed up...and had it ready for tours in just a few months...making sure everything was exactly the way it was the day she died. The calendar still hung on that day...the mail still on her kitchen table where she had read it...it was quite amazing.
1. Some things that were neat that you got to see...Almanzo died several years before she did. She missed him so that she slept in his bed...right next to his medicine bag...still filled with all his ointments...his Vicks, etc. kinda sweet and sad all in one.
2. You see all the things she bought from the Sears catalog and Montgomery Ward catalog...and it was quite a bit of stuff! She still had her Montgomery Ward Catalog in her bedroom...I wanted to see what she had circled or marked inside of it. She loved the luxury of being able to look at and buy all of those things...vs. shopping at the mercantile in Walnut Grove.
3. The house was built bit by bit. The last edition was not built by Almanzo and it was a parlor, tiny music room and tiny library. The parlor had a table built out of a tree trunk that Almanzo had built...it was beautiful. Also, he became interested in needlework in his later years...In the parlor you can see a couple of rugs and pillows he had embroidered. It was kinda funny to see this manly farmer do something so domestically focused. And he did a good job.
4. The land was almost 200 acres. Her daughter Rose was concerned about her parents living in such an old house..no a/c, no water, etc. That she had a house built for them on the land. Its made of stone that was collected from the area and has pecan floors, from trees right off of the land. They never really liked the house but moved into it to make her happy. 7 years later...they packed their stuff up and moved back to the little farm house. The floor plan was bought from...The Sears Catalog, of course.
5. They have a museum right next to the farm house. It was FULL of memorabilia from Laura's house and Rose's. It had tons of pictures, letters, articles of clothing, etc. Most importantly...it had Pa's fiddle...and Laura's favorite porcelain trinket. One day a year, Pa's fiddle is played for people to hear. That would be neat to see one day.

The girls dressed up in their "prairie dresses" that Nana made them. Everyone thought they looked adorable...including me! They bought lots of postcards of the place, since pictures are not allowed to be taken. Kaytlynn got a snow globe, Delaney bought a Christmas ornament and they both bought bonnets for their head. Ma was always getting on to Laura for not wearing her sun bonnet...claiming that they would be as brown as Indians. The girls think that is funny and joke about it all the time! After all the touring...the kids spent a good 30 minutes on the property just running around chasing one another. Kaytlynn found a limb that she used as a walking stick...she played like a little old lady the whole time and was quite the sad girl when she realized she had left it.

We decided to stay in Missouri another day...just to rest. The heat wiped us out and Nixa seemed to be a nice lazy town. We spent our evening at the pool watching the girls swim.

On a side note. The girls were able to see Amish people riding around in their horse and carriages for the first time. They loved it. They would wave at them and sometimes they would wave back. It made you wonder if they got tired of cars driving by looking at them like they were part of a carnival... But who can resist staring, ya know? It makes you kinda wonder what life would be like if you lived so simply. I bet they are happier due to so many fewer distractions in life...and I bet they have a better understanding of what is important.