My Inspiration

My Inspiration
"From start to finish I found no strangers... These are my people and this is my country." John Steinbeck

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Glorious Country

Before we left DeSmet we visited the grave site of Pa and Ma Ingalls and some of their chldren.  The markers are quite plain, flat granite slabs...all but Pa's.  His grave stone, considerably older than the rest, is a tall marble oblisque with his name and dates almost obscured by time and weather.  It touched me deeply and I asked myself why.

I have left behind the modern-day, Michael Landon image of Charles P. Ingalls.  Not that I don't still appreciate the show...especially what it did for making these historic places prominent.  But in reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's novels...most for the first time...I have come to see Pa as much more than a TV star. 

Pa worked so hard!  I look at all we have here in North America and wonder if we really appreciate it.  And do we appreciate all that those who came before us did so that we may have it?  Pa Ingalls struggled through grasshopper plagues, prairie grass fires, blizzards, starvation, threats from wild animals and more.  He met these challenges with courage, strength and ingenuity. 

As Ted and I drove down the narrow dirt laneway out of the graveyard, I realized that in writing about her family...her father in particular...Laura not only immortalize him...but she also immortalized the Pioneer Spirit.  Charles Ingalls, her beloved Pa, IS all those other men, women and children who dared to leave the comfortable life behind and face the dangers of the unkown to help open up this vast country.

This morning Ted and I are leaving Milford Lake, Kansas and travelling to Independence where Pa took his family and built Laura's "Little House on the Prarie".  I am looking forward to more of this vast land flowing past the me in a gorgeous panorama where endless grasslands meet endless skies...small towns stretch out flat and neat as a picnic blanket...rolling landscapes are dotted with isolated grain elevators and old-fashioned windmills...above-ground irrigation systems pop up like giant preying mantises and.huge stockyards corral cattle waiting for consumption.

The Missouri River flooded terribly this spring and many of its tributaries and lakes were stopped from draining into it.  Here's a photo of the receding Milford Lake, now opened, where we camped last night.

Bye for now.

Love,

Mom/Peggy

2 comments:

  1. You definitely have a flair of bringing the reader alongside you. I can't wait to read more of your adventure. I can see your whole journey pressed into a "living" novel. Thanks for sharing your journey with us.

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  2. Aunt Peggy, I'm SO flattered that you picked my name for Rosa! I've found a lot to love on my road trips out west. The deep, deep night sky, the endless view of lightning storms on the plains...cosmically huge and intimate at the same time. I'm glad you and Ted are enjoying yourselves. Safe travels!

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