A Vacation of 2,974 Miles
So back from Vacation & going to watch my sister graduate from college! It was so much fun but can't believe how fast it seemed to go! I figured I'd share the places that I stopped on my round trip of 2,974.3 miles!
Day 1
Our first stop was kinda close to home & mainly for the men in my life Moline, Illinois. You might be thinking, "What's there to see?" that's what I thought when it was suggested and then I was told... the John Deere Pavilion! Of coarse once a farmer always a farmer! This was basically just a tractor museum of some of the most famous and unique tractors John Deere makes. The best thing about this is that it was completely free to see! You were able to get into the equipment and see what the inside was like, the also had planting simulators, videos, escavating games, and so much more that short words on a blog can not describe. If you are a parent that has a child who loves tractors and equipment, this would be a definite stop to make to get the creative juices flowing. I think my son could have spent more time in there and he is only 2, which is close to the amount of time we spent in the museum part of the pavilion.
Next we went to the gift shop store, I know what your thinking a gift shop where everything is way over priced and break right away. This is not one of those gift shops. Yes, some things were expensive depending on what you were looking to purchase, but no more than you would pay for John Deere licensed apparel in other stores like Walmart, Farm and Fleet, Kohls and any other retailer you can think of. I don't normally let my son get much "big" items but we were on vacation, and with Grandpa. As you know Grandparents are good for one thing and that is spoiling, and beings that my son is the first grandson, you can only imagine the options he had to choose from! He ended up convincing my parents to get him a farm set, no not one with the cheap plastic animals, the one with the die cast metal combine, tractor, grain cart, semi, and semi matching trailer. Yeah, your thinking what I was thinking spoiled and expensive, especially compared to what he got out of his parents. LOL. We got him two John Deere tractor books to complete a series that his Daddy had growing up. Yeah, not the greatest but I swear we read tractor books ALL the time I needed a new one or two of them!
We left there without a problem because he had new toys, which we had to open once to the car, and books for the rest of the long ride that my son was unaware of how long this trip would really be.
From there we continued south to Indianapolis, Indiana to the Lucas Oil Speedway! Another stop for the guys but it was awesome! (On-top of getting in free!) We met up with the rest of the caravan family, my brother, his wife and their two girls who have been there since noon and burnt faced like tomatoes. They opted out of going to look at tractors, as it was something they were not interested in, and went to the drag strip.
We watched drags for 4 hours, which seemed to be a little long after sitting in the hot sun (80 plus degrees, when it was about 65 degrees back in Wisconsin) on metal bleachers and next to concrete. As we watched, and my son very much enjoyed, theses fast race vehicles as they were going down a quarter mile drag strip in 3 seconds! It was so fast that they used parachutes to help assist in stopping and watching a few get loose made you very very nervous as a spectator. Since you can only sit so long with 3 kids under the age of 7, we then walked around the pits watching them tear down engines and specifically fold up parachutes back up into the vehicles! The thing about these races that is very neat afterwards you can watch these crews tear-down the engines and change tires for hours afterwards. The kids simply likes watching the large semi trailers stack vehicles in and using hoist to work on them. It was what one called "moving shop". If you are one who likes to get souvieners before you leave, and a place to store them, you can often watch them change tires and ask to take one of their "junk" ones home with you to simply use as a toy box storage, side wall wall art display or a table top. The possiblities are up to you!
So from there we went to the parking lot and decided to try to find a hotel room, after being in the tiring sun and having tired little ones being around 11pm. So we called and called looking for hotel rooms to fit 6 adults and 3 children, this was not easy for a very busy town after drag races. All of the hotels were booked. So with having some time left in the night and assuming the kids can sleep in the car we drove about an hour and half, just outside Cincinnati, to Harrison, Ohio and stayed there. This was about the first place to fit our size group and had a continental breakfast and was about in the middle of our next destination...
Until tomorrow!