I didn’t actually count how many nights in a row we slept outside.

Kevin might have.

I do know that in the first town we drove through that featured a large store of any variety, Kevin pulled the Tahoe over and went inside with cash and came back out with one self-inflating sleeping pad.  (Yes.  One.  I guess after seeing my expression he turned around and came back out with a second one.)

At any rate, we slept on the ground for more nights than we did not sleep on the ground.

When we reached DeSmet and toured the surveyor’s house and the Ingalls’ Homestead, we visited the house Pa built last.

And.

Just two houses down from Pa’s house was an equally old historical home – the home of Banker Ruth.

 

 

The home of someone Laura Ingalls Wilder knew.

And guess what?

That home was our evening’s lodging.

The Prairie House Manor Bed and Breakfast.

 

 

On a quiet street (I think every street in DeSmet is a quiet street) we walked through this gorgeous porch – just look at this ceiling.  (I want to walk upside down on the ceiling – it’s just so pretty.)

 

 

We walked into a lovely living room where homemade cookies were awaiting our arrival.

Do you know who was excited to see a room with beds and a private bathroom without tricky shower antics?

Uh.  We were!

And as if our Americana Medley-themed room wasn’t exciting enough – the kids (and yes, Kevin and I too) were pretty impressed with the bed in the wall.

 

 

Even with the Murphy bed pulled out we had a lot of space for our full-sized family.

And I loved the giant piece of furniture in our room.

 

 

We had a girls bed and a boys bed and a parents bed – it was pretty convenient like that.

And – another random fact – when once Melissa Gilbert, the actress who played Laura on the television series, stayed at this bed and breakfast – she stayed in the same room we stayed in.

We settled in early for the evening – partly because DeSmet doesn’t offer a lot of evening options but more so because we were so thrilled to be in a clean, welcoming room with soft beds.  (Plus, we had downloaded the series finale of 24 and we wanted to watch it.  Which was an interesting challenge for us to watch it and for kids not to watch it.  It was …. a disappointing finale.  Come on Jack Bauer.  For the love.)

Before we fell into a truly restful sleep that evening, we had been given the opportunity to pick our breakfast for the next morning.

 

 

The breakfast (which is half of the charm of staying at a bed and breakfast) was perfect.

One part because we didn’t cook it over a fireplace or eat it out of a cellophane wrapper,

one part because it was truly delicious

and one part because it was individually exactly what everyone wanted.

Pancake men like Ma made for the girls in the Little House in the Big Woods were requested on all of the plates of our children’s.

 

 

Because it was London’s birthday, her pancake man had a candle and there was a cute decorative cake beside her plate.

 

 

And our table settings matched our room’s theme – I thought that was a cute touch.

 

 

And, you know what was extra special?

While we were eating our fruit but before the pancake men came marching out, the bed and breakfast owner stepped behind me and offered me an opened copy of Laura Ingalls’ Big Woods novel – with the page turned right to the paragraph describing Ma making pancake men for her little prairie daughters.

 

 

It was a moment, y’all.

I read the story to the kids and we listened to Laura’s words with our waiting bellies and softly serenading us in the background was a recording of a musician playing …. wait for it ….. pa’s real fiddle!

Yes, the family at Prairie House Manor know how to treat their Laura Ingalls devotees.

(In fact, they’ve played a role in the DeSmet pageant in the past years too.)

 

 

The couple who own and operate the hotel left a fast-forward kind of life on the East coast to take their family on a slower track in South Dakota.  They were kind and gracious, welcoming but not overbearing.  You know I loved that it was a family business in a small town – a choice to live life differently for one family that resulted in a little slice of hospitality and charm on the vast prairie.

 

 

It was a refreshing evening and a great morning.  It breathed new life into our journey and into our tired selves.

Sleeping (and eating) in a part of Ingalls history fit our agenda and our adventure perfectly.

 

 

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