What kind of tractor is that?

2 Replies

I've been waiting on pictures to post about my recent trip to Minnesota.

Dad and I drove straight through Friday night and made very good time.  We were in Mt. Lake before 2am.  After a few hours of sleep (and our initial trailer tire change), we got to the task of loading the tractor and engines.

  

Luckily, we had some help and the masterful tractor skills of Rodney Goertzen.  We loaded the Rumely, six engines, and two old Maytag engines with relative ease.

After an interesting evening seeing people I haven't seen in 15 years and a nice quick trip to Minneapolis to see the Twins , we set off back home for Kansas. Our rough calculation for trailer weight was about 6900 lbs on a trailer rated for 7000.  Plus about 600 lbs in the truck bed.  Plus at least that much in the cab because I wouldn't ride in the bed.

Many thanks to Rodney and Mary Goertzen for the good conversation, kind hospitality, and hard work.

Our trip back to Kansas was a bit more eventful. Every time we fueled up or stopped for food, people would ask what the heck we were hauling.  Most of the interest was in the tractor, but a couple of people knew enough to ask about the other engines.

We lost our first trailer tire just south of Norfolk, NE.  The tread cap completely came off at about 60 mph but the tire stayed inflated.  We were able to pull off the highway and get it changed without having to unload anything.

Almost immediately after we started back on the highway, we started losing pieces of the two trailer tires we hadn't replaced.  We limped into Eisenmann Supplies in Madison, NE.  The owner was working the counter and remarked that he had "cut a lot of engines like that up for junk back in the day."

     Matt changes tires

In order to speed the process along, I helped put the tires back on.  After settling up, we were on our way.

The rest of the trip was fairly smooth.  The truck had some minor transmission issues that were solved by adding trans fluid.  My wife and Abe met us in Hutchinson Kansas and dad drove the rest of the way to Pratt.  His neighbor Bob helped him unload.

Unloading engines     Unloading engines

It was nice to spend some quality time with my dad.  Hopefully, we won't have too much trouble cleaning up and restoring the tractor and engines.  

There are more pictures here . 

Nice game

Leave a reply

HHH Metrodome Roof

On my trip to Minnesota this past weekend, I was fortunate to see a Twins game in the HHH Metrodome.  It was my father's idea and we had a great time.

The visiting Brewers had no chance against the red hot Twins.  Francisco Liriano struck out 12 in 8 full innings of a three-hit shutout.  A beautiful pitching performance.  I hope that the Twins can hang onto Liriano.  He's only 22 and shows tremendous poise and concentration. The long term tandem of Liriano and Santana would keep the Twins at the top of the pitching ranks.

Twins Beat Brewers

The Twins also played solid fundamental baseball and gave Liriano an 8 spot of run support.  By the time Morneau hit his solo home run the Twins had the game well in hand.  They are a good team.  They play largely independent of a reliance on home runs and support a solid pitching rotation with good defense.

An 11 game win streak got snapped by the bottom-dwelling Royals last night.  And, the Tigers and White Sox keep winning at about the same pace.  I would have never thought that the AL Central would be the strongest division this year.