Adventures with Big Blue

[campfire]

Today I took a drive through Marinette and Menominee both. Hauled another load of house materials. This load was longer than last time. My wife was working on a project at a friend's house and showed up right as I was leaving. I borrowed her services as an escort car (easing my dread of tailgaters), and she took the following action shots with her phone:

 

[campfire]

The trees are turning pretty colors:



In a few weeks we'll be able to get some really nice shots.

 

[campfire]

I then stopped at my customary spot and got my poser shots:

This is a 20' pallet sitting in my 8' bed. Believe it or not, it actually wasn't touching the tailgate in the static position. Not sure why, as it certainly deflected downward behind the truck.







And there sits another piece of my house.

 

[campfire]

Well, @RobTav63 touched the thread, so I may as well bring it up to date.

After last summer's CUCV-towing trip, my designated tow rig was no longer cooperating, but I had borrowed the car hauler planning on returning it next time I headed South. So tow-rig duties fell to my favorite step-side. Picture of loading up for departure:






I love the round taillights. It also has this tweak in the framing (right side sits noticeably lower than the left side. While this was initially annoying, it has grown to be endearing over the last few years. I wouldn't change it now, even if it was something trivial to adjust.






We entered Iowa at Dubuque, planning to meet up with @shady and @TREA18 for lunch. However, we arrived nearly an hour ahead of Rick's availability, so we decided to pull off and revisit Eagle Point Park. The park sits on a bluff overlooking the mighty Mississippi. It is right in line with Lock and Dam 11, so one can sit and watch the barges locking through. In a former lifetime we used to enjoy hanging out here, so it was neat to see it again.




The river at this location is over a mile wide:






First shot of the dam:



My parking spot. In front of the No Parking sign. It's actually a no overnight parking sign, but it makes for a good backdrop.



Big Blue overlooking the Big Blue.

 

[campfire]

The park is full of pretty green spaces:



But we mostly wanted to see the dam:



We arrived just as the last bit of a Southbound barge train was heading through.



The lock isn't large enough to pass the whole train through at once, so the tug will drop its train upstream of the dam, push a few through, and anchor those few on the other side. Then it continues ferrying barges through until the whole train is on the other side. Here you can see they 6 barges in the lock are getting coupled up to the barges already on the downstream side.





Here is the upstream side. We didn't see any barges anchored here, so I presume this was the last batch for this train.




The boats seem so small in the vastness of the river.



Looking downstream:



Looking across the river to the Wisconsin side. I've been down that little road to the far side of the dam, but it's been a few years. Maybe we should check it out again sometime.



Here you can see the next train coming in. They announce their presence with a bellowing fog horn.

 

[campfire]

Sitting and watching the barges burned up our spare time, so we didn't see much of the rest of the park. But it's a pretty place.

 

[wetoolowdingbangow]

Such a cool area! I need to get out there one day. Ive seen half the states but mostly on this side.

 

[RobTav63]

After my stop, I decided to play around with nighttime shots. It's kinda fun to pretend to be a photographer.

View attachment 174394

Great shot! Love this one, really shows off the step-side

 

[campfire]

And then I completely forgot how long it takes to cross Dubuque. Dubuque, Iowa, is a town of 60,000 people. But it has the traffic patterns of a much larger city (there aren't many good roads for getting across town). This had slipped my mind, as I usually skirt around the outside of town on the highway. The end result of my miscalculation was we actually showed up late for lunch instead of early (apologies again, guys )

Didn't take many pictures before or during lunch. But we had a grand time, and I think Rick and Tony enjoyed themselves.






Rick had to head out promptly, but Tony circled his truck around next to mine for a brief CK5 photo shoot.









And after that we headed out. We wound up heading the same direction for a few miles, so I have a couple of action shots, too.





Thanks again to @shady and @TREA18 for making this happen. It was neat to meet up with you guys and to see the Dubuque area again. We should have another CK5 meetup soon.

 

[campfire]

Such a cool area! I need to get out there one day. Ive seen half the states but mostly on this side.

Yeah, we have plenty of interesting things to see. That's why I share pictures. To encourage folks to get out and see things. If you're enjoying these, I have several other threads full of adventure pictures. And if you periodically bump this thread I will continue posting pictures. I have several thousands of miles' worth of backlog.

Great shot! Love this one, really shows off the step-side

Yay for stepsides!

 

[wetoolowdingbangow]

Yeah, we have plenty of interesting things to see. That's why I share pictures. To encourage folks to get out and see things. If you're enjoying these, I have several other threads full of adventure pictures. And if you periodically bump this thread I will continue posting pictures. I have several thousands of miles' worth of backlog.



Yay for stepsides!

Good to know. Reminds me that i should take more pictures of the things i see all the time. They may be interesting to others.

 

[RobTav63]

My K5 is nicknamed Big Blue also (short for Babe, the Big Blue Ox). Funny, same year as your K10. If I ever head your way with her, we'll have to get a side-by-side photo.

 

[campfire]

Ooh...missed this sunrise picture from the beginning of the trip:




And I got a couple of hasty pics of what looks like a Fiero Fastback.




Shot out the back window (mostly covered with side boards).



While we were down in Iowa, we helped out with a garage raising. We started with a bare slab in the morning and had all 4 walls up before quitting that evening. Big Blue hauled a load of sheathing foam for the project:



Picture of morning progress:



And someone took some neat pictures of it driving around at dusk. I'm pretty sure I'm the one driving it, so I'm not sure who took the pictures.



Chevy cousins. Mine looks cooler than the GMT-400 does.






Round taillights FTW!



Looks like I didn't fold the tailgate up right away. I do like how this tailgate folds all the way down. Makes unloading things a snap to magically fold the tailgate out of the way.

Great shot! Love this one, really shows off the step-side

Here's another one for ya:

 

[campfire]

My K5 is nicknamed Big Blue also (short for Babe, the Big Blue Ox). Funny, same year as your K10. If I ever head your way with her, we'll have to get a side-by-side photo.

Sounds like a great idea.

This truck's name was picked out before I bought it. It fits well enough that I haven't felt like changing it. Though it belches smoke, and my other smoke-belching 6.2 trucks have dragon names. So this one probably should be the Big Blue Dragon. But "Big Blue" is still sticking, so no use changing it now.

 

[campfire]

Good to know. Reminds me that i should take more pictures of the things i see all the time. They may be interesting to others.

Yeah. It's been nearly 10 years since I last went to California. And I've never been in the northern 2/3rds of the state. So I have only the vaguest of ideas what it looks like. Seeing other people's perspectives gives me a better idea of what the world looks like. Share away.

In this trip report, I didn't even bother taking pictures of Dubuque. I've been through Dubuque several hundred times. There's nothing new there for me to see. But as I think about it, almost everyone reading this thread hasn't had exposure to Dubuque. If you haven't been following my other trip threads, you probably have no idea how cool the approach to town looks like (coming off of a bluff onto the bridge over the Mississippi). What's boring to me might well be interesting to you.

Maybe I should take some pictures next time I head that direction.

 

[campfire]

I do have one odd thing about this engine. When it's warmed up, and I switch from driving to idling (like at this stoplight), the oil pressure often rises. It's only at idle, even the slightest pressure on the pedal sends it back to its normal range. But it quite commonly pegs when at idle. Anybody else have this quirk, or know anything about it?

 

[campfire]

Then, as this was Labor Day weekend, we headed down to the Midwest Old Thresher's Reunion in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Lots and lots of old iron. Tractors, trains, old west reenactments, threshing bees, all kinds of good stuff.

This may sound like the last post, but I've been there so many times that the camera just doesn't click as often as you guys might have liked. Old iron tends to be old (), and the displays don't change too much over the years. But here goes.

First up is one of the steam trains. Each year the Midwest Continental RailRoad (MCRR) runs 2 of them on a track that runs a mile (or so) around the fair grounds. This engine is actually on long-term loan from the Georgetown Loop railroad in Colorado. They swapped this flatland engine for MCRR's #9 shay engine. Evidently the Colorado folks wanted a mountain engine. I've ridden on the shay several times, and someday I want to ride it out in it's new home territory. Oddly enough, in Colorado it costs $26 to ride the train, in Iowa it costs $1. To ride the same train. Although the ride is much shorter in Iowa, it still seems like I'd be getting the shorter end of the stick out in CO.



















This is during noontime. The trains are mostly empty because this is when they do their 2-hour old iron parade. Tractors, cars, farm machinery. Anything that's old (or replica) and drives slowly.














This goes on for 2 hours. We usually park in the grass and eat lunch. By the time a slow lunch is over, we've seen most of what we wanted to see. This year's shade was an Oliver Super 77. Lunchtime ended when the owner wanted to start it up and join the procession.

 

[campfire]

Miniature steam engines:



Not-so-miniature gassers:



Medium-sized steamer:



This one looks a lot smaller than it really thanks to that guy in the orange shirt.



I like Rumley rigs.




I think this is the smallest model that I've seen in the parade. The driver is just about scraping the ground on his little pull-behind wagon.




After we get tired of sitting, we'll get up and walk upstream. Makes the parade speed double.

 

[campfire]

This one gave me a double take. I talked to the owner about it, and he swears it's an obscure dealer option. IH did make their own diesels (later), but if you wanted, he says you could have a GM engine shipped to your dealer and installed to IH specs. Never heard of this before.






It stood out to me because it didn't sound "right." Just when I think I've heard everything there is to hear, I find something new.

 

[campfire]

The largest engine at the fairgrounds is this one. Used to pump water for the city of Marshalltown (IA), from 1922-1976 (IIRC, it's been a few years since I actually read that plaque in the corner ). When the engine was retired, it was donated to the museum. In disassembling it for transport, the museum volunteers found that the engine still had its machining marks in the bores. After 50 years of continuous use. That is serious overbuilding.


I love to just sit and watch it run. Listen to the nearly silent generation of significant amounts of power. It's a relic of a different era, so different from what we call "power" today.



Here's a shot of this year's other train (they rotate through a collection of engines). This is the one that we hopped on to ride.



I like the model T that trails behind. It's self-propelled, but is stuck following the train schedule because the trains never stop.



A few times each day, a group of reenactors boards the train and carries out a train robbery. We arranged to be on just the right train to partake in this tradition. So we were boarded and given a thorough robbing.




At the end of the ride, the robbers have a good-ol-fashioned shootout. Very nicely put on. And it's funner to watch it from the train rather than joining the crowd on the grass.



There is a whole village of reenactors doing various historical things. My favorite is the blacksmith shop.



And that about wraps up this trip down to Old Threshers. On the way out we spotted this in the camping area.



And out on the street the local grocery store was running this panel van:




I think it's a nice touch of class for a local business to join in on the fun. Old Threshers is a special place indeed. I'm not sure if they're going to stay frozen in time or continue with their "it must be 50 years old to bring it here" rule. That rule would now allow a 4020 to join in the fun, and that just doesn't seem right at all.

Either way, I'll have quite a wait before my truck will be allowed.