Day 8 - Ingalls Homestead, De Smet, SD

We are camping at Laura Ingalls Wilder's father's homestead in De Smet, SD.

We set up the tent to mark our spot in the field at the end of the parking lot where we park the van. There are many exhibits and buildings to visit in town and out here on the homestead. Lots of hands on things for kids to do.
There is also a tour bus that takes you to all of the various sites around town including the cemetery. It took nearly 2 hours. There were only 2 of us on the bus. We really got our money's worth as we had Ann's(the guide) attention the entire time. Got many questions answered including the fact that her family runs the tours and the Homestead. Yesterday when we arrived here on the Homestead, I took the entire tour which took me about 2 hours. Highly recommended for Laura fans and families.
Later we hung around and had a campfire and stayed up to watch the moon rise.

Here I am Big Girl on the Prairie

To backtrack, we left Sandusky intending to camp in the Indiana Dunes National Park but it was Friday and like trying to go to the National Seashore on a weekend in summer with no reservation. We decided to press on and continue past Chicago hoping to beat traffic but we got caught in some so we decided to go to a Holiday Inn Express in Rockford, Il which was well past Chicago. We got to do laundry and sleep in a big bed. We also had the brake light come on and the fluid was quite low. We got some and kept going but it continued to leak slowly.
Next day (Saturday Aug 17) I made a reservation before leaving the hotel for a campground in Austin, MN. It was on a big peninsula on a lake and had great walking trails right from the campsite. We met a nice woman in the next site and had a chat with her in the evening.
We'd actually made up a lot of time and were going to come here next but decided to stay in Brookings about 50 miles away because it was bigger and would have more places to help us with the brake problem on Monday. So, another Holiday Inn Express.
Monday we found a place to help with the car in Brookings and it turned out to be a loose fitting from when the brakes were done in July.
So we felt confident about that after worrying about it since Friday.
Then we came here to De Smet. We'll stay here again tonight then move about 150 miles West to a State Park near Pierre. I've already booked the site.
Then we plan to camp near the beginning of the Badlands for 2 nights. Again I already made a reservation, because it will be the weekend. Then we'll go through the Badlands and Mt Rushmore and to Custer State Park.
That's as far as I've made reservations for but I've planned out the following week as we snake our way through Wyoming.
Saw this sign in the restaurant where we had lunch:
BElive
THEre is
GOOD in
the world.