The next place we visited was probably the highlight of Emily's trip. It was also one of the reasons for coming to Missouri. Mansfield, MO is the home of Emily's favorite author, Laura Ingalls Wilder.
While we were here, we were able to visit and tour her actual home and see where she wrote all of her Little House on the Prairie book series.
While we were here, we stayed at the Laura Ingalls Wilder campground. It was really nice and secluded and we had the whole campground to ourselves. We got there just as the sun was going down so we didn't get to explore too much that night. The next morning, I went for a run and found this little turtle just walking down the road as I ran passed.
On my run I also discovered that Laura's house and the museum were right across the street from our campground and we could easily walk to everything we wanted to see. I also ran the full length of the town and back and only ran 4 miles. Mansfield is just a little town made famous by Laura fans like us!
The first thing we did was walk across the street to the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum. We watched a short film about her life and then decided to check out her house before it got too hot outside.
This is Laura's house, the Rocky Ridge Farmhouse, that she and Almonzo lived and died in.
Emily was so excited to be here! We were able to walk through this house and actually see where Laura lived. It was so cool. The tour guide was really good and told us a lot of facts about her life and also Almonzo's and her daughter, Rose's lives as well. One thing I didn't realize was that Laura was a short woman only about 4'9". Almonzo built all of the counters and cupboards to fit Laura's height so they were all quite low. Inside the house were the two things that were saved from her house that burnt down during the first few years of her marriage. A plate that said "Give us this day our daily bread." And her beautiful clock. They are still there. This home was built with all of the modern conveniences as a gift from Rose because she felt like her parents needed them. She had a beautiful home.
Outside the home were some large plaques that gave tribute to Laura and her stories as well as told about her life here.
After touring her home, we went back to the museum and went through the museum. This was a great museum packed with a ton of facts and artifacts from her life and her stories. My favorite piece in the museum was Pa's fiddle.
We were lot allowed to take pictures in the museum but I had to sneak one shot of the fiddle. This was the actual fiddle that Pa used to play each night as the girls went to sleep as well as other times.
Other cool things in the museum were her wedding dress, the actual paper tablets she wrote her manuscripts on, and so many other little trinkets from the stories in her books. Emily was in heaven and wanted to read ever caption and see everything. We were there for quite a while.
The next place we went was a little way down the road so we drove. It was what Laura called the Rock House.
This is where Laura lived originally when her and Alonzo came to Missouri they lived here for quite a while until the bigger more modern white Rocky Ridge house was built.
This was where the Little House books began. She started writing her stories here and completed the first four books here before she moved to the other house.
Along with seeing the houses, we were able to go to the Mansfield cemetery and see the grave sites of Laura, Almonzo, and Rose.
That was pretty cool. It is one thing to read about some one's life and their adventures and love them and then actually go to where they lived and wrote their stories and see where they are buried. It really makes it feel more real. This was really a great stop and very educational too.
As we left Mansfield, we said goodbye to Laura as we visited the statue of her at the park.
We had a great time seeing all of the Laura Ingalls sites and learning more about her history and life.
While we were driving to Mansfield, we kept seeing Amish buggy signs.
So I looked up Amish in Missouri and found out that there was a pretty big Amish community right near Mansfield. If anyone knows me, knows that I love reading and learning about the Amish so I made Russell take a little detour/shortcut through the Amish community on our way out of town to our next destination. He willingly agreed but would not stop anywhere for me to look around or talk to the Amish people. I really wanted to find an Amish shop or something but we didn't. However, we did see some buggies driving down the road and their houses.
Isn't that so cool! I had to take pictures as we drove by but it was still fun to see. It must have been wash day because all of the houses had their laundry out on the line to dry. I know the Amish won't allow you to take their picture so we were lucky to get what we did.
Our next stop on our way to Independence, MO was Amoret, MO.
This was the birthplace of my Grandpa Morwood. This is where he and his family lived. Though I didn't know anyone there, I wanted to go there to see the town my grandpa came from. I also wanted to go to the cemetery and see the graves of my Morwood ancestors.
On the way to the cemetery we kind of got lost because it was really out in the middle of nowhere. We asked for directions and even the locals didn't know where the cemetery was and pointed us in the total opposite direction. Maybe we just asked the wrong guy.... Finally we got on the right road and another local told us to just keep going on this road for a few miles. (Literally in the middle of nowhere!) On this dirt road we found another turtle! We stopped to catch it and when Russell picked it up, the turtle peed all over him! Ha ha we laughed so hard. 
We finally made it to the Mulberry cemetery and were able to see all of the graves of my ancestors.
I wish I knew more about my family history and genealogy because I didn't recognize many of the names on the gravestones. I know that I am related to all of them though because we are the only Morwoods. There were a few names I did recognize though. One was Albert Morwood. He is my great great grandpa! That was cool to see.
This was a quick little side stop but still fun to see where your roots come from.
Then we got back on the road again. Our next stop was Independence, MO. Amoret is just about 10 miles from the boarder of Kansas and Missouri.
So we decided to skip over to Kansas and go up to Independence through Kansas. We were able to hit another state on our trip that way. (and it really was faster).
We made it to Independence and our campground around 8 pm and we had dinner and baths.
Charlotte decided she wanted to wear her diaper on her head instead of her bum! Funny girl. We settled in for the night and tried not to melt in the humidity. Another adventurous day was in the books.
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