Michigan Flywheelers - Antique Tractor Show & good-bye new friends

We woke up on Friday to BEAUTIFUL weather, and although it was a little chilly still, it was promising to be a great day!  The boys got started right away on their schoolwork, and soon our new friends - Georgia & Glenn - had their rig all hitched up and were ready to continue northward in their exploration of Michigan.  We took a break to wish them safe travels and say "Good-bye for now!"

We really enjoyed getting to know you guys, and hope to meet up with you again sometime -- maybe at the RV-Dreams Rally in April! 

The boys finished up their work around noon, and we had a quick lunch and then rode our bikes over to the Michigan Flywheelers Museum for the Antique Tractor Show.  We couldn't believe how crowded it was!  We arrived just in time for the "Equipment Parade" led by the Grand Marshall (also known as the Manager of the local Walmart -- seemed fitting!).

There were tractors in all shapes and sizes

-- small ones --

--  HUGE ones --

-- really OLD ones --

-- and ones that wanted to be a train --

We saw several old Ford tractors that reminded us of the one we have at home, but none exactly the same.

We even saw an old Chevy truck

and a Willy's Jeep (those were built in Toledo, OH!)

Lastly was this crazy John Deere -- it reminded me of some of the remote control cars that Nick & Bryce had when they were little!  He was spinning it in circles as he drove along!

Oh!  I can't forget the FUNKmobile -- I'm not sure what it does, but somebody told us that it was completely hand-made!

After the parade, Tom decided that he should check out the "steamed corn" that he kept seeing people walking around with.  It was quite an operation!  Here's the engine that produces the steam to cook the corn --

Tom's waiting patiently in line for his corn.

Delicious!

After Tom had his snack, we walked around looking at some of the permanent museum buildings,

-- like this blacksmith shop --

-- and this shingle shop --

-- and the sawmill --

Watching these guys take big logs and turn them into 2x6's was really cool -- and loud!

Bryce said that he would never want to work in a sawmill -- he's much too clumsy, and would end up losing an arm!

After the displays, we walked through some of the Flea Market -- it was pretty typical flea market fare, with a lot of it geared toward tractors.

This row of John Deere tractors looked pretty impressive!

The grounds here are really nice, with lots of shady areas for the exhibitors to camp, a huge grass parking area, and a big barn for the evening entertainment.  There were even a bunch of these old movie theatre seats scattered around in the shade!

After 3 hours or so, we were hot and tired, so we rode back to the RV Resort to take a swim in the pool, and have some dinner.  At 8:30pm, we went back to the fairgrounds to catch the evening entertainment -- The Bronk Brothers!

They are a local country band who were surprisingly VERY good, and put on an entertaining show!  We stayed until about 10pm (they still hadn't taken a break yet!), and then went back to the campground to have our last campfire. 

Today we woke up to rain (I thought the weatherman said it wasn't supposed to rain until LATER today!), but had to pack up and get home regardless of the crummy weather -- oh, well -- that's the life of the not-yet fulltimers!