This is the weekend when the old tractors putt-putt down the back roads heading towards White Pines Forest State Park. It's one of Jim's favorite weekends here. He starts grinning the night before they arrive, in anticipation...remember Carly Simon singing that song? An-ti-ci-pa-tion.......... anyway, he's a happy camper today.
They left Sublette, a tiny village about 35 miles from here, early this morning. They stop in Oregon for lunch, and to park along the Rock River on Highway 64 for a rest period. Then they come to White Pines, all in a long procession on as many back roads as possible, to display at the park entrance overnight. Drivers are served dinner, catered by the Lodge, and will eat under the Old Oak Shelter along the creek, the largest one here. Following breakfast at 7:30a.m., at the lodge, they'll head towards Lowell Park, outside of Dixon, IL. This is the park where a young Ronald Reagan was a lifeguard, and credited in saving 34 lives, during his tenure as a teen. Noonish, they'll go to Grand Detour, the home of John Deere's famous plow, where they'll partake in a Tractor Rodeo, and a corn eating contest. Heading home, late Sunday afternoon, the tired tractors will go back to Sublette, their point of origin for the weekend festivities. Sublette has Burma Shave signs welcoming you into town. The skyline there is two church spires and the silos of the grain elevator.
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