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Monday, July 25, 2005
Walnut Grove, day 2
Thankfully, the girls slept in just a bit Saturday morning. In a perfect world, we would've had to hurry to make it out for a late brunch. Instead, I stumbled bleary-eyed to the main desk for the last couple of coffee from the first pot brewed. The coffee was not organic, shade grown, or fair trade certified. It tasted nothing like the coffee I birth each morning to the rapturous call of trumpets. Even so, I drank it with vigor.
We dined on breakfast cereal and bananas in the motel room before buckling up in the relatively cool car. The forecast was for face-meltingly warm temperatures for entire weekend. I lack the constitution for such heat, so I was prepared to fake heat stroke at the earliest possible convenience.
We drove the 25 miles from Marshall to Walnut Grove, where the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum was plainly marked. We took photos in the covered wagon out front, then entered the gift shop.
Big Sister Hammer rushed the sun bonnet and apron section like a First Avenue crowd trying to escape Danceateria. Her plan was to cling to the first sun bonnet she could reach like she was a GOP operative with one talking point to last through a 30 minute interview. I wrestled her to the ground just in time. This allowed Ms. Hammer to find aprons and sun bonnets that would actually fit the girls.
Two apron and bonnet sets, a frontier cookbook and two adult admissions later, we did the tour. Little Sister Hammer locked herself in the Old Tyme Jail Cell. That was fun. We played the pump organ in the school house. We read about bed bugs in the frontier cabin. We even tried to teach the kids a thing or two in the farm implements building. Fortunately, they would have none of that. Ms. Hammer enjoyed a collection of letters LIW wrote to school children. I paged through the binder looking for a section of letters starting with a phrase like "I never thought I would be writing to you, but last night I had the volunteer firefighters over for a bar-b-que..." Finding none, we moved on.
We lunched at Nellie's Cafe. Another stranger plied Ms. Hammer for information while the entire cafe admired how pretty Big and Little Sister were in their sun bonnets and aprons. The waitresses were dressed in nurses shirts, which I took to be a bad sign. The food, though, was fine, though I made the mistake of ordering "Cajun fries" in Walnut Grove. How stupid am I?
After lunch, we hit the town park for pony rides, ice cream, and crafts. The girls made button necklaces and painted rocks. There was a miniature Civil War demonstration that punctuated our fun with moments of deafening gun fire. I don't remember any shoot outs in the Little House books, but I suppose Nellie might've crossed Laura one too many times.
Oddly enough, there were two gents at a table pimping a self-help book. Anyone who saw what they were up to gave the booth a wide berth. There was a 10 yard bubble around the table the entire time we were at the park. I plan to use this technique next time I want elbow room at a fireworks display.
At long last, Ms. Hammer and I couldn't take the heat any longer. We tried to usher the girls toward the car, but they insisted on riding the merry go round. "Dammit!", I roared, "we're on vacation, will you stop ruining everything by trying to have fun!"
Yeah. So, we spun the merry go round in the 95 degree heat. And me without my sun bonnet.
We decided to skip the homestead site for the day and headed back to the motel. We talked the girls into a nap, then took them to a matinee showing of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was almost exactly what I expected, except that either Tim Burton is getting funnier or I'm getting more warped. Either way, the adults really liked the movie, but the kids were unimpressed by the lack of singing Barbies.
As a last sign of my depravity, I broke down and bought the new Harry Potter on the way back from the theater. Tried to buy at a local bookstore, but they were closed. They had a few in Kmart, between the garden hoses and the garden-hose colored suits. I thought it would be cool to be reading Potter and a book about the Taliban simultaneously. I have a very peculiar -- and in this case, wrong -- sense of cool. We were back at the motel by 7:00, the kids were asleep by 8:00, I was 100 pages into Potter by 9:00, and we had but one more day to survive on vacation.
4 Comments:
I don't remember any shoot outs in the Little House books
Not to speak ill of the dead, but this reminds me of one of those "only in Hollywood" moments. I remember after Michael Landon died, some inane actor or actress told a story that was apparently meant to illustrate Landon's creativity, but only illustrated crass show-business silliness. When the Little House TV series was at its end, they had no use for the Walnut Grove sets, and were going to demolish them. Landon came up with some lame idea to incorporate it into the last episode. So they blew up the town.
It was evident from the start that the people making the show weren't all that interested in being faithful to the books, but come on! Blowing up the town? Sheesh!
By 
Joseph Thvedt, at
9:35 AM
I know that episode. Some unscrupulous big city railroad guy has managed to buy the whole town. The good townspeople are forced off their land, but blow up all the buildings in protest. Or something.
Oh, I remember that episode too! I can't watch that show anymore, unless it's a really early one. As a child I watched religiously, but since I've read the books I have realized how crappy the series is in comparison.
By 
, at
11:14 AM
Yeah, they needed a lot more episodes where Laura and Mary played volleyball with inflated pig bladders.
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