Laura Ingalls Wilder Homestead and a Whine

We spent last night on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s childhood home, the site of Little Town on the Prairie and four other books. It’s where she lived when she met and married Almanzo Wilder.

I woke up several times during the night and looked out through our bedroom windows, thinking that Laura had lived here, had seen this view, had likely stood on this spot under this same sky.

At dusk, after everyone had gone home, we walked the north end of the land, where they built their home and where the people who own it now have a few old buildings. They had a quarter section, 160 acres, and you could see pretty much every inch of it, it was so flat. Except for the hill in the northwest corner, where the RV was set up (they have hookups for four RVs, and there were three of us there.)

A couple of barn cats – barn kittens really, teenagers – followed us to the vegetable garden, to the prairie garden and to the old horse barn. It was windy and I guess it is always windy there. The cottonwoods lean northwest, and the wind was coming from the southeast all through our stay. The moon was full but obscured by clouds that poured across the sky. We got wet a few times but not soaked.

When we got back in, Will made a late dinner and I read to him from Farmer Boy, my favorite of her books.

This morning I woke with a migraine, of which I have been blessedly free since leaving California (correlation, not causation). During our long drive to the Badlands, where we are now, I tried to get some work done that needs to be completed by Monday. I wasn’t able to get online at all (via my iPhone), in fact I was only able to get phone service for a frustrating few minutes, through another carrier. I had one of those awful conversations where you just get rolling, talking through a situation, and then no service. Call back, begin talking tentatively, gain confidence and…lose service again. Curse, say you’ll just call back to arrange another time to talk, but – gee, the connection is really good, start working again - and they’re gone. The triumph of hope over experience, as they say about second marriages. *shakes her fist in the general direction of AT&T*

This is my second day without internet or much cell phone service. As a field biologist, I have spent a lot of my life in the boondocks – in Australia, in Algonquin Park in Canada, lots of time in the desert, even time on a tiny atoll (Kure) in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. I have seldom felt this isolated. I started to say I’ve never felt this isolated, but I think frustration has made me lean toward hyperbole. Surely I must have felt more isolated on Kure Atoll or the Australian outback. Maybe the difference is that I expected to feel isolated there. Besides being geographically distant from anything, I was there pre-cell phone and pre-internet (yes, Abi and Ben, your mother is that old).

But South Dakota is a U.S. state, for goodness sake. And I have had no AT&T coverage for the entire length of this state. And I have a lot of work to do. And two more days in this godforsaken state, and then a day in Wyoming and a day in Montana and a day in North Dakota, all of which have the potential to be even more godforsaken than South Dakota.

On the other hand, it's absolutely gorgeous. Will has just left to photograph the Badlands and I'm sitting in a grove of cottonwoods in the Koa campground outside the national park. A Koa campground that advertises WiFi. Hahahahahahahaha. Not so much.

I told Will not to come back until it's dark, to make sure he got the good light for photographing. He's going to look for some dinner in the rinky-dink town here, Interior. I don't think he'll find anything, I think all it is is a biker bar and a gas station. But it is possible that I have a bad attitude and he will come back with something delicious.

I guess I probably sound like a whiner. But traveling isn’t all sweetness and light. Did I mention that I’m annoyed about not having cell phone or internet access? I know, intellectually if not emotionally, that I will be able to get onto the internet (for one thing, I already have for tantalizing moments and for another thing, you won’t be reading this if I don’t ☺) and I know that I will get my work done. But for now I’m just going to pout for a little bit. Thanks for listening.

PS I will ask Will to add a pretty picture to this post when we have better uploading ability, and I will update our map then too. It will probably be a coupla days at least.