Trip report

We took a trip from SC to IA to visit daughter. Went across NC, TN, KY, In and IL. Went through hilly part of KY, crossed the Ohio River at Cincinnati and went through a corner of OH. The corn I saw in northern KY was drought damaged, same for IN corn. They were starting to harvest corn by the time we came back Wednesday(yesterday). No idea about yields. Corn also poor in IN and they were combining also. IL corn looked better. Bear in mind I can't tell a lot about crops when going by in a car. Corn in East central IA not too good, soybeans better. Saw IA Gary, who had posted air views of his farm earlier during the worst of the drought. Some of the fields looked damaged from the ground also. He can tell about his yields if he wants to.

Went across a bit of southern MN and South across WI. Crops looked better there. Asked a guy at Plattsville, WI about corn yields and he said they were spotty, he was getting 0 to 40 bushels an acre.

Still a lot of small dairy farms in the part of WI we went through. They were putting up corn silage and had some nice fields of alfalfa. The Harveststore people sure did sell a lot of silos there. I think SC got in on the tail end of the Harvestore craze.

Went through the John Deere assembly plant in Waterloo, IA, where they assemble 90hp up tractors. Very clean and efficient looking plant. They have a robot paint system which uses .9 gallon to paing a big chassis where human painters used 4-5 gallons. They are putting tier 4 engines in the tractors now and after asking it seems they are not quite as fuel efficient as the older engines. I don't have the technical details on these different tiers.

They have the Chip Foose JD 4020 on display at the plant. Somebody won it on a raffle? and after driving it in a few parades decided he would rather have it displayed at the factory.

Travel info if anyone is interested: I gave up crossing the Ohio River at Louisville because of congestion and crossed at Cincinnati, which worked out fine. I gave up on going through Indianapolis in 2010 because they were building a beltway around the city(I 465) but tried it this time and things went ok. The beltway around the southern part of Indy is almost finished and the only bottleneck is where it joins I 74, which wasn't bad.

KEH

sounds like you had fun. you missed me by 90 mi. glad you had a safe trip. Bob

You must be back home Keith?

Thanks for stopping by again. Sounds like it may be your last visit with your daughter moving on.

I enjoyed the visit and glad you stopped by.

I wonder who owns that Chip Foose 4020? If I get up to Waterloo I may have to stop in and see it, even though I don"t care for the looks of it myself.

Gary

The Chip Foose tractor was apperantly given to John Deere by the guy that won it. Not completly clear, everything he said didn't come through, there was enough noise to interfere. The tractor is lowered and has smaller tires than normal.

We also went through a motorcycle museum at Anamosa, IA which is interesting even if someone is not into motorcycles. Also went through the Czech museum in Cedar Rapids, the Norwegian museum at Decorah, and the Seed Savers placew in Decorah.

KEH

I didn"t like the Foose 4020 until I got to see it up close at John Deere Fall Fest in downtown Waterloo 2 weeks ago.I saw it at the factory last year. There are many things you don"t see in the pics that you notice in person. Very cool tractor.