The John Deere Pavilion - Moline, IL

On Friday we drove three and a half hours towards our next destination.  We stopped for the night in Moline, IL.  I had booked a decently priced hotel on hotels.com.  As I researched the area for activities to do on Saturday morning, I discovered that we were right across the street from John Deere Pavilion.  It’s a big showroom full of tractors and heavy equipment that you can climb on to your heart’s content.  Best part about it?  Completely free.  For a family of six, that’s amazing.

 

Elaine in one of the "big ones"

Liberty loved this little mower.  Nehemiah liked the automatic "Tango" mower.  I liked that one too...if I had a yard to mow!

 

The kids enjoyed the showroom and scattered in four different directions.  Luckily it wasn’t that big that we couldn’t keep track of all of them.  However, we did have quite a lot of attitude come out – especially from Liberty.  Nehemiah was rather compliant because he was in…little boy heaven.  He is a total boy, and I believe his exclamation upon entering the building was “Wowwwww!”

I think this was the combine...cant' remember

Nolan loved this tractor and the old fashioned ones.  Prior to this he has been "collecting" Deer X-ing signs as we drive down the road.  "I see a watch out for deer sign!"  After being at John Deere he exclaimed, "I see a watch out for deer sign but it's freen {green}!"  He had seen the Deere logo!

 

I tried to get a picture of all four kids together, but the only time they came to one spot was on the Gator, and this is about how it went…

All four kids in a gator.

All four kids in a gator a moment later.  Note the twins.  This is normal these days.

 

We had a good time in all.  There was a children’s section in the back with toy tractors, books, farming facts, and a big puzzle.  There were computer simulators too, but I’m not talented on video games and the kids were too little.