Wichita, Kansas (Miles to Date: 35570)
We spend the night at St Robert, Missouri before heading down the small town of Mansfield, Missouri. This was another opportunity to continue on our quest to visit all the places that Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House on the Prairie fame lived in throughout her life. In 1894, the hard-pressed Laura, her husband Almanzo and their young daughter Rose moved to Mansfield, using their savings to make a partial down payment on a piece of undeveloped property just outside of town. They named the place Rocky Ridge Farm. What began as about 40 acres (0.2 km2) of thickly-wooded stone-covered hillside with a windowless log cabin, over the next twenty years evolved into a 200-acre, relatively prosperous poultry, dairy, and fruit farm. The ramshackle log cabin was eventually replaced with an impressive and unique ten-room farmhouse and outbuildings.
Today the farm is a National Historic Site. We start off in the museum which is full of artefacts from Laura and Rose’s lives. There is so much to see including letters and diary excerpts that we just don’t have the time to do it justice. From the museum it is just a short walk to the farm house. It is a very modest building and is very much as it was the day Laura passed away in 1957, a few days after her 90th birthday. The first room you enter is the bijoux kitchen; the most noticeable feature of which is the very low counter tops on base unit cupboards. These were custom made, as was the case in those time, and Laura being very petite had them made to suit her size. We pass through the parlour and into the bedroom in which both Laura and Almanzo passed away. The final room is lounge, which is the largest and most comfortable room in the house.
After the tour of this farm house we take a short drive across the farm to a stone built house. This was a gift from Rose to her parents and they did live in this house for several years, but they missed their old farm house and moved back there for the remainder of their lives. We were allowed to go into this more modern home, which was rather lovely with some great details. It is hard to fathom the motives behind Laura and Almanzo moving back to their old house.
It is now time to continue on our way. We have not finished with Laura Ingalls just yet. A hundred or so miles further west is the Kansas town of 
Independence. Here is the location of the original house on the prairie. The simple cabin has long since disappeared and it took many years of painstaking research to find its location. There is now a replica of the “Little House on the Prairie” based on the descriptions in Laura Ingalls Wilders’ books. It does not take too long to explore the single room structure, but our sense of achievement in having visited all the main sites that Laura had herself been to during her life far exceeded our excitement of visiting this place alone. To celebrate we bustled our way into downtown Independence, which is more than a one horse town …. more like three horses and found ourselves a wonderful road side store selling shaved ice. Having satisfied our exuberance with shaved ice we head off to our stop over in Wichita, Kansas.
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By the time we had risen and left the hotel the weather was already hot and steamy and we knew we were in for another toasty day. It took us about 15 minutes to walk from our hotel, down Canal Street to the mighty Mississippi River. With more time we might have taken a paddle steamer ride down this most famous of rivers, but we were not destined to be Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer for the day, so instead we walked through the Woldernberg Park, which runs adjacent to these waters that had flowed so many miles across this vast country. In the Park we found a memorial to the Holocaust, at the centre of which was an amazing modern art sculpture by the artist Yaacov Agam. The sculpture is made up of a series of vertical, painted discrete panels which as you circle them give different images depicting themes or “memories” of the Holocaust. It was truly and amazing and powerful work of kinetic art. Across from Woldenberg Park is Decateur Street, another popular area for tourists, which by the time we arrived was just swinging into action. This street borders the French Quarter and has some splendid examples of New Orleans architecture along its route, .jpg)
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including wonderful balconies bounded by ornate iron railings. This street is home to numerous gift shops, galleries and eateries. One place we were particularly keen to visit was the famous “Café du Monde”, situated in the French Market area of Decateur. For over a century this café has been serving patrons and vendors of the French Market with its signature offerings beignets (French doughnuts) and café au lait. Well, we just had to try it! The beignets are served covered in layer upon layer of icing sugar, which looks and tastes great, but it impossible to eat without making an absolute mess. Of course Jack and Emily managed to get covered in sugar, but half the fun was licking this sugar off of our fingers. We could have easily polished off several helping of these delicacies but settled for a single serving. Delicious! We continued our walk down Decateur and noticed a subtle sign for the National Park Service. We have loved visiting National Parks and Monuments so we were curious to see what was here in New Orleans. Passing down a narrow alley between the building we found the Park Service building and wandered inside. This unit of the Park Service is dedicated to the musical culture of New Orleans, and we were lucky enough to be able to listen to the back end of a stage performance of two of the Rangers who were playing songs, primarily with a Creole influence. It was wonderful to listen to this traditional music, which is quite hard to find being played along the tourist traps of Bourbon Street. The audience was mostly made up children who were on a summer camp with the Park Service, and it was clear some were not really that interested in the music. After the performance they were led away by a fearsome lady Ranger under the threat of having to hold her hand if they misbehaved! There was also a TV production team filming; they were making a documentary on the larger than life black Ranger, who was a native creole speaker and who had the most wonderful deep, booming voice. Being here also gave Jack and Emily another great opportunity to do the Junior Ranger programme, which they zoomed through and got sworn in. We finished our walk through the French Market and then diverted into the heart of the French Quarter. Away from the main tourist streets this area is quiet and peaceful, and for the first time we got the chance to appreciate the essence of this great city. Eventually we do find our way back to Bourbon Street, which is somewhat less frenetic than during the evening hours but it is still bustling. It was by now lunchtime and the satiating effects of the beignets had worn off so we needed to find somewhere to dine. During our ramblings over the last few days we had been told about a restaurant called “Hobnobbers”; the name alone was enough to draw us to this place. Finding this place was not too easy, being off the beaten track andit is best described as a “hole in the wall”; it required squeezing down a narrow passage to get to. It is one of these places which does not look too promising when you enter it, but it was full of people- which is always a good sign. We settle for some traditional creole foods, gumbo and shrimp poboys, which are very tasty indeed. The afternoon was hot and humid so we decided to head back to our nice air-conditioned hotel room for a siesta. In the evening we decided Jack and Emily could chill out at the hotel whilst Mark and Karen headed out for the night. We decided to go back down to Decateur Street to check out the night life there. As we walked down the street we noticed small groups of teenagers wearing identical shirts, and it turned out that these we a church group who were in town to perform some songs. They were setting up on the steps up to the park, but were not quite ready so we decided to return to the Café du Monde for some more beignets. By the time we were finished the group was ready and had started to perform. We started watching from the other side of the road as they performed “Fly Away” by Lenny Kravitz, when a man came over to where they stood and started encouraging them. The choir looked stunned, and when they had recovered their composure a big cheer went up and they all looked very excited, especially the girls. We did not know who this “person” was so we asked some other bystanders. It turned out to be Lenny Kravitz himself. We were not sure if this was prearranged or an amazing coincidence, but whatever the case it was fabulous experience for these kids. Lenny got more involved when he took over the drum kit to accompany the singers and was finally invited to join in the singing. It was fabulous and really set-up our night. The gospel group did not miss a beat and were clearly thrilled to have performed with Mr K ...he disappeared quietly into the crowd after his impromptu performance! What a nice guy! We spent the rest of the evening strolling the streets, eventually making our way up to Bourbon Street where we went into a few bars to listen to music and drink overly priced drinks. Never mind! Is was a near to a date as we'd had for a time and the kids had a great time watching TV and eating unhealthy foods!
