I was unsure of exactly what to expect here. I will admit I was fearful that this would be kind of boring. In the interest of full disclosure I have to tell you that I normally loathe "walk through history" style field trips. You know, the kind where you have a restored or preserved pioneer village and you stroll around looking at dusty farm implements and creaky barns with some hay and chickens added in an attempt to lend an air of authenticity. I know, I should hand over my "Homeschool Mommy" card so you can tear off a corner because we home educators are supposed to eschew textbooks and eat this stuff up. I don't like textbooks, but I would still prefer to learn history by reading it.
The homestead was not at all what I was expecting and that is both good and bad. It was bad because although the buildings sit right on the Ingalls claim, there is no way to stand in modern South Dakota and get a feel for what Laura must have felt when she walked out her door in the mornings to fetch water or pick vegetables. Although DeSmet is tiny and the area is still mostly farmland, you cannot look out over a vast and mostly unsettled prairie. You see cell phone towers. Trucks rumble by on the road. A huge combine harvests corn in the distance. While I knew well that the world has moved on here, I think I was sort of expecting to feel the openness of the frontier and get lost in Laura's childhood world. That world is long gone. But it was cold, windy and rainy enough to give a slight idea of the beginning of the long winter Laura immortalized in the book of the same name.
Off the site, you can visit the shores of Silver Lake, Almanzo's homestead site and one of the store sites in DeSmet. However, tourist season is pretty much over here and those sites are not open. Silver Lake is a pothole lake, which means it is really just a low, muddy place during times of drought (like now) so we did not bother stopping there, knowing it would look nothing like Laura described it.
If you read Laura's books as a child or are presently enjoying them all over again with your children, this is worth the visit if you are in the area. The frontier as the Ingalls family knew it is a relic of the past, but an appreciation for the hard life they experienced it alive and well.
-Jenni