Missouri, Part 1 - Missouri Rocks! (and a Little House) [240413-15]

We're spending a bit of time in Missouri, so our time here will be split across a few posts.  This first one will cover the first few days, before we popped out of the state for a night for lodging reasons.

After leaving Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, we continued heading north on country roads so small that there was no indication of exactly when we crossed over into Missouri; Tile location history (after the fact) showed us at the border at around 11:08 a.m. though.  Shortly after merging onto the freeway, we drove through some interesting rock formations.

Passing through the city of Seymour, we got to "share the road" with an Amish buggy.  Googling it afterwards, we learned that Seymore has one of the four major Amish communities in Missouri - and one of the most reclusive.  They looked almost as surprised to see the Travato as we were to see them.

We arrived in Mansfield, MO a little after 1 p.m. and proceeded to our activity for the afternoon:  The Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home & Museum.  Because the Ingalls family moved around a bit, there are actually a number of Laura Ingalls Wilder Museums around the country that you can visit.  This particular site is the final homestead/farm of Laura and Almanzo, where they moved to after the events of the final Little House book - and perhaps more significantly, it's where the Little House books were actually written.  Google routed us to a confusingly large building, that we figured must be the Visitor Center / Museum.

The site consists of three main buildings:  the Visitor Center / Museum, the Rocky Ridge Farmhouse (which you can just make out at the top of the path through the trees to the right, as seen from the top of the Visitor Center steps below), and the Rock House.

Inside the lobby, there's a map showing the various locations that Laura lived, and when she lived there.

After buying our tour tickets, we watched the short orientation movie and then proceeded into the museum.

Prominently displayed near the entrance was Pa's fiddle, which apparently is still taken out and played once a year on festival days.

The museum was largely organized so that around the edges each family member had one display case of artifacts, and each book had a synopsis and case of artifacts and/or example materials.

We found this display for On the Banks of Plum Creek particularly interesting.  The top row contains the original name cards the girls exchanged, and in case you can't read it the interpretive sign says "Nellie Owens' Name Card - Her name in On the Banks of Plum Creek was Nellie Oleson.  In all her books, Laura changed only two names."  So the Nellie Oleson we all loved to hate was never really Nellie Oleson at all!

The displays in the center of the room contained mostly artifacts from the two Rocky Ridge Farm houses themselves.  We found this one particularly amusing, because of the monogram on the silverware (for "Laura Elizabeth Wilder" 😉).

Garth Williams, who illustrated the editions of the books we all know and love, got a few displays of his own.  One showed the some of the various other well-known novels/series that he illustrated, but we particularly like this one that showed some of his original sketch work for Farmer Boy.

One case had some first and second edition prints of the books with the "original" artwork, which we had never seen before.  (We prefer the more familiar Garth Williams versions, though.)

Their daughter, Rose, had several displays of her own.  An accomplished author and world traveler, she was instrumental in helping Laura to get started in fictional writing and in getting the Little House books published originally.

There also panels that talked about her non-author life, her travels later in life with her daughter, etc.

We walked up to the farm house a few minutes before our scheduled tour time in order to take a few photos outside beforehand.

The tour started in the Kitchen.  Like the rest of the house, its still as it was in 1957 when Laura died, with its original furnishings (except the curtains).

Here's a photo of Christine standing next to a "life-size" Laura.  You'll notice that everything in the house (counters, cupboards, etc.) is built low, because Laura and Almanzo were not tall people (Laura was 4' 11", and Almanzo was 5' 4").

The Dining Room where...

...on the shelf above the stove you can see the "Christmas Clock" described in The First Four Years.

Laura's side of the bedroom (painted in her favorite color), looking into the bathroom.

The Office; Laura's writing desk - where five of the Little House books were written - is on the right (ultra wide-angle lens makes this room look larger than it is 😉).

The Parlor (again, with the ultra-wide angle lens), which contains a number of the original cushions, rugs, and wall hangings hand-made by Laura and Almanzo; the library can be seen off to the right:

The Music Room; a portrait of Rose hangs on the wall to the left:

After that, we hopped into the T42 for the short drive up the road to the Rock House.  The Rock House is also accessible by a 3/4 mile walking trail from the farmhouse, but we didn't think we'd make it on foot in the 10 minutes between our tours.

The signs tell most, but not all, of the story.  Rose, after becoming an accomplished writer, decided that her parents needed a newer house "with all the modern conveniences" to retire in so she had the Rock House built for them.  Laura and Almanzo lived in the Rock House for seven and half years - during which time the first four of the Little House books were written in it - while Rose lived in the old farmhouse.  When Rose moved to New York, Laura and Almanzo moved back to the farmhouse because they "were homesick for the old place" and lived out the rest of their days there.  Parents! 🙄

The tour began in the Living Room:

Then onto the Dining Room (shown in ultra-wide again), which is the "room where it happened".  In the wall sconce on the left is a copy of Pioneer Girl - a book created from the first manuscript that Laura wrote.  An autobiography targeted at adults, they couldn't find any publishers interested in it - so she re-told her story as a series of children's novels instead, and the rest is history.  The first four Little House books were written at the dining table in this room.  (Pioneer Girl was finally annotated and published in 2014; we had never heard of it before our visit to the museum.):

And then to the Kitchen (ultra-wide).  Having been sold to and lived in by other owners after the Wilders moved out, quite a bit of restoration had to be done by the Museum to try to restore the house back to the state it was in when the Wilders lived there.  The original top kitchen cabinets were found in the barn, and authenticated as being from the original kitchen by the presence of the original railway freight tag still glued to the underside of one of them - now framed on the kitchen counter.

The "ultra-modern" Bathroom was one of the more costly parts of the original construction.  The tile, sink, and bathtub (including a Wilder-height shower head) are all original.

And Bedrooms - with those newfangled "closet" things:

We spent a total of 3 hours at the site, and it's been our favorite museum so far.

Driving another half hour down the road brought us to the city of Mountain Grove, where we had our second "Wallydocking" experience.  At this Walmart, Customer Service wanted overnighters to park at the far end of the lot by the under-construction gas station, and be out of the lot by 6 a.m. (ugh!).  The nice thing about the gas station location was that it was barely within range of the next-door Burger King's wi-fi, so we stayed up later than we should uploading images and video for the "Nicking Arkansas" post.

-----

With alarms set for 5:40 a.m. we actually got up around 5:30 and rolled out of the Walmart parking lot a little before 6.  There were very few cars on the road at that time of morning, and we got to see some interesting early-morning cloud formations with thin wispies hanging off the bottom that reminded us of jellyfishes; the photos we took couldn't quite capture the phenomenon, but they were pretty all the same.

We pulled over by the side of the road in Cabool to watch the sun rise.

With well over 30 hours of in-van travel time completed now, you must be wondering "what kind of deep, philosophical conversations must be happening on those long drives?"  Here's an example from that morning, as captured on our dashcam:

Yup, quality conversations happen when Walmart wants you up and out of their parking lot by 6 a.m.!

We arrived at our next attraction, Elephant Rocks State Park, just before 9 - and promptly took a nap, followed by breakfast and our usual morning routine.  Then it was time for a hike - the first of the trip (finally)!

The Braille Trail is a one mile loop that circles the Elephant Rocks natural area.  Its name comes from the fact that it actually is designed for the sight impaired, with guide textured mats and guide ropes at major turns, and interpretive signs in both English and Braille.

This gentle giant of a rock liked having its nose rubbed.

We saw a number of these caterpillar mats on the trees around the area...

...and figured that those little tiny caterpillars probably grow into big ones like this guy. 

A short spur off the Braille Trail takes you up to the top where the actual Elephant Rocks are.  The Rocks aren't actually shaped like individual elephants, but get their name from the way they're lined up like a train of circus elephants.

The largest is 27 feet tall and weighs 680 tons.

Other (unofficially named) rocks of interest included Kissing Rock:

and Missouri Half Dome:

Further down the trail "The Squeeze" is a pathway through a joint fracture that may some day become two new Elephant Rocks.

The view from the old Quarry, where "Missouri Red Granite" was mined, was quite pretty.

A side loop Engine House Ruins Trail was supposed to be accessible from two points along the Braille Trail, but we never found the second so had to repeat part of the Braille Trail again to find the first access point.  Upon reaching the ruins, we saw the trail continue into a flooded muddy area - which probably explains why we never saw the other end.

We went back to the van for a late lunch.  While we were eating, a granite colored Travato from Illinois pulled into the spot one over from us.  The driver waved to us as he headed to the path with his dog.

A short while later, we headed the 20 minutes up the road to our next campsite at Johnson's Shut-ins State Park.  After checking in, we headed across the road to the Visitor Center where we browsed the displays and watched several short videos on various topics - none of which actually explained what a "shut-in" is.

We then headed further into the park to walk the quarter mile path that leads to the boardwalk above the shut-ins.  Luckily, we found this explanatory sign along the way.

Back at the campsite, after an evening shower in the bath house (all of which have been free so far) "weather conditions" and "where we're staying" finally aligned such that we were able to cook and eat outside for the first time on this entire trip!

-----

The next day we had some free time, and reviews of the campsite reported that they had some of the cheapest laundry facilities around so we went to check them out.  The reviews were quite right - washers and dryers for only $1 a load!  Couldn't pass those prices up!

One of the camp hosts (on her day off) happened to be finishing up her laundry there.  She told us that she's been a camp host at Johnson's for four years, and worked at Custer State Park (SD) before that; she gave us all sorts of tips and recommendations for the Custer State Park area.

A 2.5 hour drive NE took us a little ways across the border into Illinois to our next night's accommodations:  the Atkins' Acres Educational Farm (another Harvest Host).  Mike, the super friendly owner, greeted us upon arrival and shared all sorts of tips about the area and told us that we were free to wander the grounds and make ourselves at home.  The farm was absolutely gorgeous.  Aside from the "barnominium" were Mike and his wife Kim lived, there were planting beds, two large ponds, and birds and nature throughout.  Extremely relaxing.

The weather has been unseasonably warm lately, so rather than spend time in the hot T42 (or run the air conditioning) we made burritos and ate them at one of the picnic tables in the garden, after which Tom finished the "Nicking Arkansas" post using the house wi-fi.

Tomorrow:  back into Missouri...