Photo courtesy of VisitGreeley.org
On the way there, Murphy paid his first call, distracting me as we left, and leaving the GPS unit on the counter. No problem! It's in Greeley right off Rte 43, East of town, at a YUUGE RV campground that's on both sides of the road, and it's on the South side. How hard can that be?
Uhhhh......well......
I finally got it hammered in to my Local Wetware Database, that "Crossroads Blvd" is NOT "Rte 34". For some reason, I got off I-25 at the Crossroads, instead of going a mile or so further South, and getting off at the correct exit.
Long story short, the GPS "guidance" (note the lower case "g" and quotes...) took us about 30 minutes out of the Best Way from where we were, but we made it there.
And it was great! An astounding collection of tractors from the 1920's up to the 1970's, all in pristine, operating condition, with friendly owners willing to talk your ear off about them. I saw names I remembered from childhood, and learned some new ones. We missed the Really Cool Stuff that happened on Saturday, like most of the demonstrations, but we're definitely going back next year. The 1800's operating sawmill was down due to a warped blade (yep, there's a place in Montana that still rebuilds those blades!), but the 1840's wood-framed Drill Rig was set up, and I got to learn a new type of drilling: "Percussion Drilling" vs modern "Rotary Drilling" ( cue up the Howard Hughes footage..). This rig "just" picked up a specialized piece of pipe (the "Chisel"), and dropped it down over, and over, and over again at several hits per minute. Depending on the soil, they could go up to 300' deep, many times deeper than a hand-dug, stone-lined well.
And the only Hit-and-Miss engine still there was out of commission with some kind of gremlin. One of my best friends in high-school was really into these, and they're a riot to see in operation.
And The Little Guy got sit in the seat of a 1920's Farmall "Cub", that probably looks better today than when it rolled out of the factory, and is still in use! It's the same little "Cub" that was pulling a wagon with 4 car-type bench seats in it, loaded with people.
Just incredibly neat
Well, wow, Jim, that's really cool, but where are the pictures?
Murphy had me distracted enough before we left that I also forgot the camera bag on the kitchen counter.........I just don't function very well at 0830 without coffee!
And my cellphone was in the charger.
And for some reason, my sweet little wife, who's normally snapping like crazy with her phone whenever TLG is around, didn't take any pictures today......
Oh, well.........Murphy again, I guess!
So we stopped at Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers on the way home, and other than the place being more crowded than I'd ever seen, we had a pleasant lunch. Freddy's is pretty good, and is the first "Good" burger place we found out here. Great fries, very good frozen custard, shakes, and malts, and great burgers. Probably a Good Thing it's all the way on the other side of town, or my diet could be in jeopardy!
More about Murphy later. I'm bushed......
On the other hand, the weather looks to have cooperated, and no Biblical plagues paid a visit to the event.
ReplyDeleteYou're going to have to explain why the word "concrete" is on the sundae menu at Freddy's.
We saw a steam powered and belt driven sawmill in operation at Rough & Tumble Engineers Museum and it was awesome.
https://roughandtumble.org/
"Concrete" is their term for a very thick, chunky, almost frozen, custard treat they sell.
DeleteIt's very good!
Missed seeing you. Would have liked meeting the Little Guy.
ReplyDeleteQuick way to start a fight. "My gandkids are cuter than your grandkids".
Yeah, would have been good to see you again. It was an on-and-off deal between the 104* heat on Friday, our schedules, and the storms rolling through. The old guy who gave us the ride with his Cub said Friday was brutal, but Saturday was nice.
DeleteSure missed seeing all the demonstrations, though!
Check out
Deletehttps://www.yumaoldthreshers.org/
Always remember Murphy was an optimist! My neighbor has a hit/miss as his backup generator, and runs it about once a month... LOL
ReplyDeleteAye, that he was!
DeleteI haven't seen a hit-or-miss running since about 1970, so it would have been fun to see that one popping away, spinning a big belt, and shucking/shelling corn with the other machine it was connected to.
Sounds like you had a good time, even with Murphy getting up to mischief.
ReplyDeleteWe used to have a gentleman that had a huge collection of old farm equipment and would put on a great show each year. He also had an amazing model train collection. He stopped doing it a few years back, I guess it got to be too much, and Calif.
Oh, yeah, hard to do things like that in Kalifornia anymore. I was surprised how 'open' things were. Parked the car maybe 75~100 feet from the exhibits, and you walk up to, and touch, all of the tractors and equipment.
DeleteDr Jim, the east coast has the Pageant of Steam, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pageant_of_Steam which is an absolute must see if you are in the area at the time. The lakes area in general is beautiful and the smell of hot oil and steam, and the 'shuff, shuff, shuff' of the engines big and small is just amazing.
ReplyDeleteThey have traction engines, a sawmill, a power house, a crane/steam shovel that they were letting kids operate (with guidance) model engines and more hit and miss engines than you could ever want....
It was really interesting to see the evolution of one cylinder steam engines into the hit and miss IC versions. Some collectors had the whole history laid out on the ground, right there in front of you!
I spent more than a decade in Cali, much of it doing public events, and I still find myself caught off guard by how loose and open the rest of the country is wrt these sort of home grown events. I love it, but I can't quite shut off my 'event manager' voice telling me 'that's a tripping hazard, someone could hurt themself on that", and etc. The main difference of course is in the nature of the attending crowd...
nick
The main difference of course is in the nature of the attending crowd...
ReplyDeleteBINGO!
People here are very different than back in Nanny State Kommiefornia. I'm sure just getting permits for something like this back in CA could be an expensive proposition.
And you'd have to have all the exhibits roped off, proper PPE for all involved, etc, etc, etc.
Out here people have Common Sense, something that's been bred out of the typical Kalifonia Citizen. Can't have people thinking for themselves now, can we?