If you have read any of the “Little House on the Prairie” books or watched the TV show, you are familiar with Mansfield, Missouri. Wait a minute, the Little House books were based in Walmut Grove, Minnesota. So, what does Mansfield have to do with anything?
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| Laura Ingalls Wilder RV Park |
Mansfield is where Laura Ingalls Wilder, her husband Almanzo and their daughter Rose lived while Laura wrote the Little House book series. The home Laura designed and Almanzo built, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum and their grave sites are all located in Mansfield.
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| Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum Sign |
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| Laura and Almanzo Wilder's home |
The Laura Ingalls Wilder RV Park is across the street from the museum and Laura’s home. The campground host said the park was designed more than 60 years ago. Wow! Campground designs have greatly improved over the past six decades.
For example, there are about ten sites carved out on a hill. Maybe those sites approached level 60 years ago, but not today. We needed every leveling tool we owned to come close to correcting Rosie's lean. (Rosie is our 25 foot Airstream trailer.)
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| Our site |
Another 60 year old design trait was that connections were shared between sites. That meant the water, sewer and power connections were on the correct side for half of the trailers and had to run beneath the rest because the hookups are on the wrong side. Fortunately, we arrived early enough to choose a site with the utilities on the correct side.
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| Our utilities were on the proper side |
Finding the park was an adventure. Our GPS, Ford's navigation system and Google Maps all agreed the best path was a dirt road. We ended up with lots of dirt and road grime on both our truck and Rosie. Things were scary as the dirt and loose gravel road ended with a downward slant to a highway. Rosie and our truck were sliding on the loose rocks and didn’t stop until we were slightly in the traffic pattern of the highway. An approaching truck was able to steer around us avoiding an accident. Whew! If presented with a similar situation later, we will elect to skip the dirt road and let our navigation systems come up with Plan B.
Here are some specifics about this campground:
- This is a small campground with less than 25 sites
- Our site had two 50 power outlets. There was a 50 to 30 amp converter cord chained to the utility box. Since this was a shared power connection, you may need to bring a power converter cable if your neighbor is using the supplied converter and your rig also requires 30 amps
- Our site had a water connection
- Our site had a sewer connection. Unfortunately, it was uphill from our trailer. Since water does not flow uphill, you have to manually “walk the line” when you empty the tanks.
- The camper sharing your utility connections has to run his sewer hose under his rig. I doubt I had enough hose to make that run.
- Our site was mostly dirt with some gravel and wasn’t level
- The park provided a usable Wi-Fi signal
- AT&T provided three bars of 4G service for voice and data. We were at the top of the hill and the camp host said that was the “magic” spot to connect to AT&T.
- The park had a bathhouse and laundry. Both passed as “OK.”
- There is a stocked fishing lake in this park
- This has to be a great park for children. There are lots of things for them to play on scattered around the campground
- There is a chicken coop at the top of the hill and we saw the chickens regularly stroll through the park
- We were able to see ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC using Rosie’s TV antenna. The digital channels that came in were Antenna, Bounce, Cozi, Escape, Laff and ME.
- This is a pet friendly park
There was a strong rain storm during the night. It made our exit a little muddy. You need to be extra careful exiting the park because it is easy to slide a little on the gravel as you head down the hill.
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