Wednesday, August 7, 2013 -- Today I woke up at 7:20, got ready and checked out, and headed across the road to have breakfast at the Colony Inn. Our hotel did not offer breakfast, but it did give us free coupons for breakfast at the Colony Restaurant. So I had toast with strawberry jelly, bacon, scrambled eggs, and water. It was nice to have that for free. We headed on to our 9 AM Kinze tour after that, where grain wagons and planters are built. We watched a video about the company (started in 1965) and took a 45-minute walking tour of the factory. We saw lots of welding (done by humans and robots), hundreds of parts, and the finished products! Kinze has been growing a lot in the past year and so we saw their new factory (much bigger) and their old factory. After the tour, we walked through their museum (new in February 2013), where you can read signs and displays, watch videos, see the Tractor of the Month (from Kinze's owner/founder's private collection), and play! Even though I'm not a little kid (neither is my brother), he and I played with the toy farming equipment on the little table. It's fun to plant and harvest. And I even designed my own grain cart (it's pink) and passed the planter mastery course (with my godmother Val). After the museum, we looked in the product department/sales room, where the newest products are available to look at (and purchase, if you have the money). After all that, they have a small shop selling the regular hats, shirts, toys, gloves, and other assorted items. Then we proceeded outside to look at the "grain wagon tower" (starting with a full-sized grain wagon and ending with their biggest toy model, a 1:16 scale), "planter clock" (it really works and it really is made out of planters), and "autonomy project". This final thing is crazy! Basically, it saves farmers time, but I'm still not sold on it at all. The farmer is in his combine, harvesting, and his hopper is full. Typically, he would have to go to wherever he parked his grain cart (possibly at the other end of the field), empty it out, and then start over. This all takes quite a bit of time. Now, through high-end technology and GPS and other fancy stuff, the farmer continues harvesting. His hopper is full? No problem! His tractor comes over with the grain wagon (mind you, no driver inside this tractor) and drives alongside so the combine can empty the hopper out. All the while, the farmer can stay right in his seat and keep on harvesting. When the combine is through emptying, the tractor drives itself out of the way, parks itself, shuts itself off, and waits until the farmer signals it to come back. The tractor is able to sense is somebody or something is in the way and will go around it. Still, my thoughts are skeptical. Although it would be a great time-saver, I don't like the idea of a 40,000-pound tractor hauling a heavy grain wagon driving and controlling itself. No one is in that cab and if something goes wrong, who can stop the tractor from causing an accident? You're putting a lot of trust in technology that could fail. My final verdict? I wouldn't stop anyone from buying one (good luck and have fun) but I wouldn't personally get one. Either way, we saw the combine and tractor/grain wagon practicing out in a field, and it is pretty funny to see this huge tractor going all over by itself. It looked like the combine and tractor were dancing.
After a nice morning at Kinze, we headed home. We stopped in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, for lunch (Quizno's...California Chicken Club sandwich, Sun Chips, raspberry lemonade) and gas. A half-hour later, we were driving again and by 3 PM, we were at Denny and Val's farm. We dropped Denny off, and a half-hour later, we were heading for our home. By 4:45, I was back in my own lovely house. I organized everything from two trips (Silver Bay and this), packed for the third time in two weeks (this afternoon I'm heading to southwest Missouri for my cousin's wedding...I get 20 hours at home this time!), showered, had pizza for supper, and hit the covers at 11 PM.
This was a nice, quick trip. I enjoyed seeing the John Deere and Kinze factories and seeing amazing innovative equipment coming together. All tours were free (reservations required) and excellent. My favorite was the John Deere Tractor Works, but I did enjoy the others, too. This was fun and a great little getaway. However, don't ever come back from New York, and 14 hours later, head for Illinois! It's crazy, hectic, busy, and a mad dash to the end. But I'm very glad we were able to do this and it was great to be with my godparents and my brother, very special people in my life.
This blog concludes my nearly two weeks of travels. I'm planning on staying home and having a quieter life for awhile (except for the wedding...that will be fun, though!). I'll let you know when my next adventure comes up, but until then, have a great time and God's blessings! Thanks for reading!
~Anna~
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