1 Van … 2  Parents … 5 Children … 5 Weeks … 32 States … 11,000 Miles … and countless songs to pass the miles!

Last August and September, our family, with five kids then aged four to seventeen, traveled from our home in Richmond, Virginia, to visit every U.S. state west of the Mississippi River in five weeks. As we traveled, we looked for music to help us experience the culture of the area. We bought cowboy songs, train songs, immigrant songs and western ballads. We also brought along CDs we already had of historical ballads, folk songs and soundtracks of the musicals State Fair and Oklahoma!

We listened to songs connected to actual places we visited as often as possible. However, one of the best “location” songs happened totally by accident. We were listening to a set of historical ballads sung by Johnny Horton that included a ballad about Comanche, the only horse to survive Custer’s last stand. The song came on at exactly the right moment, as we pulled into the parking lot at the Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana. Wow—we had forgotten about that song, but we heard it at the perfect time anyway!

The favorite music of the trip came on the fourth day, at Ingalls Homestead in South Dakota. Did you know that Laura Ingalls Wilder referenced 126 songs and tunes in her Little House on the Prairie books? We bought the “Happy Land” collection of 18 songs and listened to it many, many times during the remaining month of the trip. Everyone loved the set and we still do now, a year later.

One of the best things about the music happened after we got home. Before the trip, I planned to read aloud all the Little House on the Prairie series books to my younger daughters, then aged eight and ten, but we ran out of time and read only one book. When we continued the series after returning home, the books came alive with the music. Whenever we would read about a favorite song from the CD, the girls and I would grin and start singing enthusiastically! Before the CD, I knew very few of the songs mentioned in the books and the girls knew only one. Afterward, we knew eighteen and that made a huge difference, along with having an unforgettable experience at Ingalls Homestead itself.

Our family will always associate the cowboy songs, train songs, historical ballads, and especially the songs known by Laura Ingalls Wilder with our big Out West Trip. When planning the trip, we prepared for the 200+ hours in a seven-passenger minivan by bringing many live-action historical stories in addition to music. We actually thought the stories would pass the time better than the songs, and they did help, but the kids requested and wanted the songs more. As would be expected, some of the CDs we bought did not appeal to our family, and we only listened to them once. But they still reflected the culture of the western United States and our country’s heritage, and were part of the great learning experience of the trip. Music made a delightful soundtrack to all we saw and did.

As we traveled, favorite songs quickly developed, with corresponding requests to “play it again.” We parents soon had to set a limit of only one repeat per song, or we would be listening to some of them five or six times in a row! Some oft-repeated tunes included “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” “Jingle, Jangle, Jingle” (both cowboy songs), “Arkansas Traveler,” “Jim Bridger,” and “Steel Rails” (a train song). Out of all that we heard, “Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines” from the Laura Ingalls Wilder CD became the very favorite. This version starts off with the words “one, a-two, a-you know what to do.” The kids quickly started saying it in unison whenever we played that song. Ever since the trip, whenever a child says they do not know what to do, my husband will say, “Just count to two, and you’ll know what to do!” Perhaps you will know what to do too, after you listen to the song for yourself.

P.S. In case you are wondering, in our travels through Texas, we visited Professor Carol at her ranch and had a wonderful time. She fixed us a delicious homemade dinner the night before she left to lead a September tour in Europe!