Travels with Debbie and Vince: De Smet, S.D. - The Little House on the Prairie

June 27-30. We are outside De Smet at Lake Thompson State Park. The flood waters are all around us, but we are okay. If you look at the first three photos below, you will see the park entrance, which has water up to within inches of the road. The next picture shows a road that goes to De Smet and the third photo shows a road to Brookings. We went a different route, not using either of those roads!
On our first day here we went to De Smet to see the homes and schoolhouse made famous in the Little House of the Prairie books of Laura Ingalls Wilder. We saw two of the houses she lived in after they moved from the Sod house and from Walnut, Minnesota, and another built by her father. (Pa) We also saw the school that Laura taught in for 1 year when she was 15. The first house was the Surveyors home that they lived in when they first moved to De Smet and a second that her Pa built. In later years her Pa built the family home, but that was after Laura was married to Almanzo Wilder and had moved. Trivia: If you ever saw the weekly TV show "Little House on the Prairie" Pa & Ma adopted a boy named Albert. In real life, there was no such adoption, alas, no Albert.
The next day we went to Brookings, S.D. and spent the day at South Dakota State University. We did a geocache sponsored by South Dakota Magazine, that had us climb the Coughlin Campanile, a 165 foot monument with chimes in the steeple. We turned in our geocache at the Alumni office and receive a South Dakota Magazine calendar. We also went to the Agricultural Heritage Museum and South Dakota Art Museum to see the works of Harvey Dunn. We also went to the college bookstore while we were there. S.D.S.U. has a very nice, very large campus. We had a great time there.
On our last day here, we went to Huron. We visited the Dakotaland Museum, Wal-Mart for haircuts, had a picnic in a park, and went to Gladys Payne's home. Gladys was the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate. She fought for women's rights in South Dakota and got women in South Dakota the right to vote, two years before the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote nationwide. Gladys was also the first woman to have an electoral vote. On to Philip, S.D. tomorrow.