by Mr. Bang

We went to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birthplace (it wasn’t the actual cabin) and the museum in Pepin, Wisconsin.

At the museum, there was a kids’ area for playing – there was a little schoolroom and a little area for kids to play with cars and other toys. There was a steamship you could go up inside of that was on Lake Pepin.  (It wasn’t an actual steamship, and it was not actually on Lake Pepin.  It was just a ladder you could go up to an upper deck with a steering wheel.)  There was a wagon like Laura Ingalls’ family traveled in.  It had a little tub of animal toys.

In the actual museum part, they have one of Laura Ingalls’ blankets, a pig’s bladder, and a lot of things from her time.  It had a corn husk doll like hers.  It had a dress that belonged to her first teacher.  There was also an organ like the one that she played.  There was a kitchen area like a kitchen during her time.

The house was out of town on the original property.  It’s a reconstruction.  The land around the house is not woods.  There’s a road, a few trees planted around, but there’s clearly not any woods at all.  It’s now fields and, around the house, an open area.

The interior had a picnic table against one wall.  I think that was just for guests to use.  It was a three-room cabin, bigger than most of their houses.  It also had a loft where likely Mary and Laura slept.  This is just my own thought.  There are no doors in the house, except for the front one, of course.  There are wooden shingles that were cut by hand.  The lock on the front door was designed to keep bears out.  It was a wooden bar with a rope attached to it so that when you pulled the rope, the door latch went up so people could get in and out of the house, but when it was closed, bears could not get in.

I liked it.  I want to come again.  I give it 56 stars out of 60.