Minnesota and Iowa

We left Pipestone and traveled east to a second Laura Ingalls Wilder site, Walnut Grove, MN. 

Then we veered north to Bloomington, to check out the Mall of America. It's a pretty nice mall, but apart from the Camp Snoopy in the middle, it's just a really big mall.

Yesterday we traveled south, stopping at the last Laura Ingalls Wilder site on our eastward journey, Burr Oak, IA. While living here, the Ingalls family took care of the Masters Hotel. They lived in Burr Oak for less than two years. It was a depressing time in their lives, and Laura left it out of her books. The visitor center was in an old bank across the street.

Then we visited the Effigy Mounds National Monument, where early Americans built mounds of earth in the shapes of animals overlooking the Mississippi river. We didn't get to hike around much, as it started raining hard. Also the visitor center was crowded, as the park was hosting a bird-watching event.

We drove over the river to a campsite in Wisconsin.