John Deere Green

Dan and I spent the weekend in Muncie at Brandon's, and while there traveled to exciting Jay County, which hosted the 42nd Tri-State Gas Engine & Tractor Association show, and I promised a blog post about it. I attended with the promise of steam engines and Ivanhoe's ice cream afterward. Ivanhoe's became a reality, but the steam tractors were a tad scarce. I think there were 5. Here's one of them, heading up the Tractor Parade.


There were however lots of old tractors, about which the guys were able to reminisce about using as kids. This one is apparently similar to one Dan's family had:

I was a little out of my element there, as I pretty much grew up in the city. Even when I lived in the mountains of West Virginia, it was in a subdivision, and the mall was nearby. The closest thing we had to a tractor when I grew up was Grandpa's John Deere riding mower in Jeffersonville. But I digress: the tractor show. There were also a lot of small engines running, however superfluously, as most were not attached to anything. They just ran. Others were running water pumps or performing some other useful task. This was one my of favorites, mainly because it's the right color:


Also in the parade was this cute train, with the cars made from old barrels:


After wandering around the show for a few hours, it started to rain on us, so we drove (or napped) to Ivanhoe's and ate way too much, because that's what one does at Ivanhoe's. On an unexpected but pleasant detour back into town, we ran into this bridge:


which suffered an unfortunate fate:


In all it was a great (albeit very busy) weekend, definitely good to get out of town, and as always, really great to see some old friends.