Dh, our boys, their girlfriends and I have been at the Half Century of Progress in Rantoul, Illinois.
It's a mix between an antique tractor show and a real working farm operation...with hundreds of participants. I'm sure this wouldn't appeal to everyone but we love the old tractors and have several ourselves...some we still use and other we have because they have been passed down or we collect.
People from across the country (and a few internationally) bring their vintage farm tractors and equipment to the Rantoul air field to display, harvest the crops (corn & beans), plow, disk, etc. over 4 days.
We had such fun...it was larger than I could imagine. We saw all sorts of tractors, combines, pickers, etc. working in one area. Dh & Ben went 2 years ago and they were able to see only a small fraction of the show because they were on foot. We learned from their experience though...thankfully we rented golf carts to travel from one display to another because the place is HUGE....miles wide/long.
Not only did we get to see all of the awesome tractors on display but everyone (boys & girlfriends) got along and had a wonderful time. You know how brothers can be at times ;)
I took almost 400 pictures but I'll just share a few...
Tractors....
and more tractors....
vintage trucks...
Corn Sheller...
a really big case....
a tractor & folks from Australia...
The worlds largest American Flag flown over the show each day.
One of the air hangers at the show...
I think there were 3-4 of them total.
Harvesting beans....
A look down one of the run-ways early in the a.m. before there was too much of a crowd.
One of the largest tractors there...
it was nicknamed the Earthquake because it's so big.
Ben (oldest ds) knew a guy who had a combine there so he got to take a couple passes in the field with his combine. He was on cloud 9 after that!
I'm so happy that the show was last week...
the temps were in the low to mid 80's with a light breeze.
This week Illinois & Indiana both are forecasting highs in the 90's.
I think I would have melted
because it's all outside and because it's an airport, not a tree on the place!
Very cool ... I love tractors and stuff, so would have loved to have gone there :-)
ReplyDeleteIKE xxxxxxxxxx
Wish I'd known...we could have met up! The agrifarm show in Decatur is this week...yukko hot!!! Won't be going! Love farm life even though I no longer live on one. Come from a long line of farmers...does that count?
ReplyDeleteHow cool! I once went to something like that when I was a kid....all the farm machines were run by steam! It's a fascinating way of life.
ReplyDeleteLove seeing your pics!! I went to a "Farm Show" a few years back and loved seeing all the implements. They had a bunch that were steam operated and a lot of stuff that was from the 1800's. Now THAT looked like way too work!! But a person does with what they have!!
ReplyDeleteWow that looks like so much fun - what an experience
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