Little Wine on the Prairie – Day 3

Day three!!! They Holy Grail on Ingalls! The Wilder side of Little House! De Smet, SD is the motherlode of Laura. By the Shores of Silver Lake, Little Town on the Prairie, The Long Winter, These Happy Golden Years and The First Four Years all happen here. Houses that the family lived in are here. Ma, Pa, Carrie, Grace, and Mary are all buried there. Whew. I am not sure where to go first. I am actually hoping to arrive the evening before so I can get my fill. Some of it will be odd. Silver Lake has dried up into a marsh. I think Big Slough is still there but I am not likely to go wandering into it. I learned that from Laura. No death trap dugouts just the ability to freeze to death in a winter with 32 blizzards and dwindling food supplies. And I am guessing no wine. Which would suck. Big time. Especially while you are grind wheat in a coffee grinder and twisting straw into logs until your hands bled. Bah. The town is largely laid out the way it was. The old General Store is still there and later in the summer they host a pageant. Not my thing but great for little girls I am guessing. And there is wine there now. Did I mention that before?

After leaving DeSmet, it is on to Montana to get ready for my bonus trip into Yellowstone. Cross your fingers on that one. At least I have learned from my trips of the past and have made a hotel reservation. Trying to find a room on a summer night in Montana is a bitch. And I really don’t want to roll into Missoula that late again. VOLCANO! Geysers, which I will pronounce like GEEZERS in an homage to Dr. Brian Cox, the James Blunt of Astrophysics on the Science Channel and the BBC (or the Beeb, as it is referred to in my abode)!!! I might start mumbling about ME-thane too. I will think of more stuff, never fear.

Even along this route there WILL be wine. At least nine wineries are located within a few miles of my pathway so this should be fun. The wineries include:

• Broken Plow Winery
• Schade Vineyard
• Timmerman’s Vineyard
• Prairie Berry Now with Locations in Rapid City and Hill City…. WE’VE BEEN THERE!!!
• Naked Winery Hill City
• Stone Faces WE’VE BEEN THERE!!!
• Historic Schoolhouse Winery
• Jackson Winery
• Yellowstone Cellars

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