On Saturday, because the weather looked as if it would hold out nicely, we all took a trip to Mount Pleasant, Iowa (about 30 minutes west of Burlington, on Hwy 34) to take in the Old Threshers' Reunion. They've been gathering around the remaining/restored steam-powered farm equipment, now, for over a half-century, and each year the gathering gets bigger than than the year before.
(click images for larger views)
Roughly a half-mile wide and twice as deep (not including campgrounds), the Fairgrounds held the equipment in tight formation,
but as the noon whistles (lots of them) blew, the show took to the road, & every vehicle was brought around to drive past the grandstand. The "Cavalcade of Power" was expected to last around 2 hours, but, in fact, lasted just over 3:10. They started it off with an hour of classic cars, all of them built before 1960, following that with the horse-drawn 
vehicles, the 
working scale models, the
big honkin' steam tractors,
and then the rest of the tractor varieties
Aside from the tractors, though, there were other working models -- of engines,of course,
and other tools and gadgets.
Mom took a few hundred pictures, my sister & my dad pointed and discussed engineering & design,
and I sort of tagged along looking at all the nifty toys -- even the ones initially geared for those under 12 years of age.
The near side of this tractor-drawn trailer is loaded up with Ertl's line of John Deere toys the far side had Ertl's International Harvester line. The top was the creme de la creme of riding toys.Our last act on the fairgrounds was to ride the circuit on the small-gauge railroad
. 
and then we walked back out to the parking lot & drove home, stopping at Weir Fruit Farm outside of Biggsville, IL, on the way home, to pick up a bushel or so of fresh apples.I couldn't stop singing the theme from "Petticoat Junction" all evening, after we got home. Television has a lot to answer for.
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