Elbert & Aspen, 2 big mountain hikes.  Mental fixed, done retreating.  Back to marathoning.

Days after Bighorn, laid out my path for 100.  Had already registered for six races, 3 more needed to hit my target in Dublin.  Travel costs, proximity to home, days off required [from work] – add NO repeats.  Thus far, all 91 marathons have been unique/original runs.

Lake Okoboji.  Midwest humidity, 90+ degrees.  Ya’ll know how I love heat, ARGH!

Friday morning flight.  Said I’d never fly Frontier again but for $60 (one-way), I’d live out of my carry-on.  3-hour drive from Minneapolis.  Lunch stopped in Mankato, 2 hours on flat farm roads ‘cross the Iowa border to bib pick-up.  Motel check-in (another $49 bargain) in Spirit Lake then my Midwest adventure began.  Hmm…what to do in rural Iowa?

An hour-half north & west using a handful of rural state roads, crossed back into Minnesota & entered Walnut Grove.  ‘The’ Walnut Grove – as in, ‘Laura Ingalls/Little House on the Prairie’ Walnut Grove. Even bigger?  Once a year (each July) the town celebrates with a series of events – biggest being a live outdoor performance, known as Wilder Pageant.  Called, tickets available – heck yeah, I’m in.

First stop: Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum on [aptly-named] Ingalls Street.  GREAT collection of both Wilder’s books AND the television series.  Outside stood a replica of the Ingalls’ dugout sod home.  As a kid, LOVED the show…however, was even a BIGGER FAN of the books.  ‘On the Banks of Plum Creek’ (centered in Walnut Grove) was my personal favourite of the series.

Between 2^nd & 3^rd grade my family moved ‘cross country.  HUGE life adjustment.  Lived out of a camper while my dad built an add-on structure (lived there 3 years).  Wood stove, no toilet, no running water. Dad went thru a series of assembly jobs, laid-off each winter.

Rural town, new school, tough times.  Poor family, no money.  That year, my 3^rd grade teacher read a chapter aloud [once a week] from ‘Little House in the Big Woods”.  I was HOOKED.  Reading became an escape, I was a mind traveler & the library was FREE.  [could be] Transported far from my family’s struggles, their squabbles ’bout money & later divorce.

Inside the museum, a photograph of Mary, Laura & Carrie.  A newspaper clipping (dated June 1879) reporting Mary’s illness & sudden blindness.  An audio recording of Laura (from the 1950’s), interviewed by a newspaper reporter in Mansfield MO.  Real people, real lives.

5 minute drive away, visited the Ingalls Dugout Site.  $5/car to visit a sign by a creek, on a rural farm.  No regrets 🙂

Car napped an hour before Wilder Pageant.  Gates opened at 7, local singers entertained at 8, play began at 9pm – titled “Fragments of a Dream”, show’s 40^th anniversary.  2 Acts, 16 scenes.  An older Laura (age 70) narrated the Ingalls’ story: family’s arrival in Walnut Grove, building the local church, fighting a plight of grasshoppers & Laura’s schoolyard fights with Nellie Oleson.

(FUN FACT: the infamous ‘Olesons’ were actually the ‘Owens’ – learned many names were changed in the books)

Well done Walnut Grove, well done.  Sadly, left the land of many mosquitoes (Minnesota) between Acts (left at intermission).  Long day, lotta hours logged in the rental.  Hour-half return drive to Iowa (late midnight arrival), marathon in the morning.