More of Day 1 of our LauraPalooza

Looking from our motel, Route 14 Tracy Minnesota at sunset

Got to Tracy, MN about 8pm. I had called ahead to make a reservation at the Wilder Inn. I had read about it on Tripadvisor. It was about the only lodging for miles. This is, imo the middle of nowhere. My father who grew up on a farm, even thought so.
Tracy was hit by an F5 tornado in 1968 that killed 9 people. It was the town that Laura took a train to in On the Shores of Silver Lake from Walnut Grove. In the 1870's a covered wagon traveled 10-15 miles in a day. It took us ten minutes by car to drive about eight miles to Walnut Grove.
It is beautiful country, but there isn't much besides farmland. I asked if there was a McDonald's in the business district because there was a McDonald's billboard coming into town. The lady at the motel said that the businesses there closed at 5:30. Wow!! There was a little food market up the street, a Casey's gas station, popular out here, a Subway and a Dairy Queen. There seem to be Dairy Queens in just about every small town out here. I wouldn't be surprised to learn if DQ originated in the Midwest. I'll have to look that up.
The reviews I read about the motel were positive enough. I asked about a senior discount since my dad is 77, and the lady at the desk gave us 10% off. He has an AARP card but she said just for asking she gave us the discount. That was nice. Paid only $71.
The motel was clean. We had two double beds that were sleep number beds. I think my number is 30. The higher setting seemed too hard for me. We had a big flat screen tv. I think that was a recent addition
because I could see the bracket from a smaller tv coming off the ceiling. The tv sat on a round table. The table, next to a good size dorm refrigerator, had two chairs but the tv took up a lot of the space. A clothes rack with hangers was right above the refrigerator so I couldn't hang my wet bathing suit from the day before to dry.
A lot of the rooms were used by men that work for the railroad. They sat outside their rooms smoking. It was an atmosphere I did not feel comfortable in. Not family friendly like the Maples motel in Ohio. There was a playground across the street from the motel. It's at the edge of a residential neighborhood.

This is an exact replica of The Little House in the Big Woods that Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in 1867 Pepin, Wisconsin.

No longer woods but farmland.

In Pepin at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum.

Taking the route that Laura took in the early 1870's from Pepin, Wisconsin to Walnut Grove, Minnesota.