9-4-18 Caterpillar and Thyme

9-4-18 Caterpillar and Thyme

It has been so hot that we decided to stay one more day and utilize the air conditioning. That also meant we could go to the Caterpillar Visitor Center.  Caterpillar not the crawly things but the heavy equipment company.

We arrived and were getting our tickets.  The clerk asked if we were Loopers.  How could she tell?  Aren’t there all kinds of tourist through here?  She said we were tan and we were either boaters or tennis players? This is the third time in various cities that we have been asked this.  I guess we have a look and didn’t even realize it.

Very Clever Counter
Huge wall displaying CAT parts
Track framed photos. They did a nice job with the decor.

Caterpillar makes the huge Mining trucks. We first watched a movie in a theatre build in the bed of this truck.  This truck is made from wood with plastic tires. A real truck would crush the concrete floor. It was great that we could see the size of these things.  Fun fact…most of the drivers of these monsters are women with a PayScale around $250,000 a year.  They are 16 gear automatics with many computers in them that report right to headquarters. The driver never knows if something is wrong until they pull the truck off for repairs. Often times they have parts already waiting.

On that note, Vernon Unk drew a cartoon in 1930 depicting a flat screen TV video chatting with a person at Caterpillar, which sent his order to a fully automated parts picking system and air dropped by balloon.  Today this is almost exactly how it works.  Except they sometimes use a drone.  It is almost like he could see into the future.

Virgil Uncks visionary drawing from 1930

The 797F Mining Truck Stats:

  • Payload: 400 tons = 800,000 pounds per load
  • Cost $5 million
  • Tires: Changed every 3 months costing 1 Million dollars in one year.
  • Fuel Tank size: to order up to 2000 gallons
  • 4,000 horsepower
  • Operating weight 1,375,000 pounds
  • Ht 25’ 4” with the body down, 5 stories with the body raised
  • Length 46’6”
  • Width 32’
  • It takes 13 separate trucks to deliver and is assembled on site
  • Used to haul ore, copper, iron, goal, coal and oil sands
    Movie theater is n the back of this truck.
    They had tiny loaders too
    Natalie and Karen in front of the Mining truck
    The cab of the Mining truck has scales on each side so the loader knows how heavy the load is.
    Scott and Bob by the “little” tires
    Truly a marvel to see something that big.  We learned they only stop to fuel once a day that is why they offer different size fuel tanks. They are run 24/7 and often make up the cost of the truck in a very short amount of time. The volunteers at the center are mostly retired Caterpillar workers.  They were extremely knowledgeable and still have a passion for their company.
So many moving parts!
Is that “Antique” sign for me or the tractor?
Caterpillar had their own fire dept at one time.

Caterpillar has been involved in the car racing scene for 26 years.  A young man, Kory Russel has an extensive collection of CAT car racing items and has them on loan to the Center for others to enjoy. I was impressed, and I don’t really know anything about car racing.

They had a couple of Race Cars. Here is one of them.
How did he get so many of these suits?

Big collection of small cars.

There were simulators there, so you could try your hand at driving various pieces of equipment. It first told you which thingy to push or pull etc. then let you go at it.  Natalie and I got one scoop of dirt moved before it said to please allow others to use the simulator.

Natalie failing at the simulator. 🙂
Scott in his boat cloths and excavator face.
Bob looks like he is at a gaming arcade not at the seat of an excavator.

I don’t think I would get a job doing that, nor do I want one, but driving an ore truck might be fun. The guys continued to “work” while Natalie and I went off goofing around taking silly pictures.

In the Excavator Bucket
Boys were “working” the simulations while the girls play in the Front End Loader.

I hope I labeled those correctly or my son will let me know.  He was telling me the names of this stuff when he was four-years-old.  Smarty pants.

We had heard that this wasn’t that great of an exhibit, and without taking the time to listen to the volunteers, I might have looked passed many items, that had great stories. We loved it!

For those of you who know Milo, I had to send him a picture of the excavator and tease him that mine was bigger than his new one.  Hee Hee.

Next stop Rhodell Brewery that was highly recommended to us. It didn’t open until 2pm. What??  We moved on and found the Thyme Kithchen  and Craft Beer. We had great food. They had interesting décor including hundreds of bottles of different types of Whiskey, Bourbon and Rye. It made for a great display on the back of the bar, however a ladder was needed to get to most of the bottles. Once again it was steaming hot.  We are ready for some cooler weather.

The smoker guy just pulled this tray of smoked salmon out of the smoker. I had it on a sandwich and it was devine.
Bar with 40 craft beers and over 100 bourbons.

Thanks for reading.

Karen and Scott

m/v Last Call

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