Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum, Walnut Grove.

The only reason we went to Minnesota was for me to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum, as I am a big fan of the TV series The Little House On The Prairie. So this was a dream for me.

The prairie

How to go to Walnut Grove:

To get there, we had first to go to the closest big city, which are the twin cities Minneapolis and St. Paul. We stayed in St. Paul for a week, and we won’t post anything about those two cities because we didn’t do anything there.

So, back to Walnut Grove! It was not easy to get there at all! We don’t drive, so we couldn’t rent a car, and there are no buses from Minneapolis to Walnut Grove. The closest city you can reach by bus is Mankato. Thank God we found people to host us through CouchSurfing. They were living in New Ulm, and they kindly picked us up from Mankato and took us to Walnut Grove, where they spent the day with us.

The Real Ingalls

Even if you’re not a big fan of Laura Ingalls, the museum is very interesting. It gives you a really good idea of how people lived in the 19th century. We had a lot of fun inside the museum—you can get dressed up like Laura and take photos. We also dropped an old bucket and it took three of us almost 15 minutes to get it all together again, as it was in several pieces. It was a bit like doing a 4D puzzle!

The museum

After visiting the museum (which took two hours), we went and had a picnic at Plum Creek —and that was wonderful! We were the only people there, and we spent the rest of the day walking in the prairie and around the creek where Laura Ingalls used to play.

letters from Laura Ingalls

So far this day was our best day in the US.