Construction Rodeo

 I had off work Friday to go to the Green Dragon.  Guess what?  It was raining and I was into not taking a tired cranky kid to the Green Dragon in the rain. So after lunch with Eileen who was our neighbor in Millersville, we took a road trip to our friends Christmas in September sale up in Perry County and picked up a few things. If you live around here you know saying Perry County is enough said about where in Perry County one actually went.  I never wanted a DVD player for the car but it has proven to be a mood changer when little man does not want to do something that involves the car.  The ride up went well and the ride back did not involve a nap so the evening was iffy. Saturday we went to see my grandma and Sunday we were planning to go to the beach for a pizza and to show Baylor the ocean.  I have a photo of the water touching his feet at the beach when he was 18 months in the bathroom and he often asks where was he and what was he doing.  Now he would remember going.  But the weather forecast for the beach was 60% chance of rain.  That was not good enough odds to spend 6 hours in the car there and back.  I had a back up plan for Sunday though. 

I had Baylor play outside all morning, digging with his diggers and loading rocks in his dump trucks.  We did bubbles and rode his bike around. He chased ducks to the creek that was not too recently flowing in my parents basement.  Thank you TS Lee for that.  By 12:40 he was worn out enough to not fight getting in the car again.  He almost feel asleep just 2 minutes from the Construction Rodeo in Mt Joy.  I saw a billboard on  my way back from that Fish Place and looked it up.  It is a benefit for Make A Wish event.  When I spied the crane, I pointed it out to Baylor and he perked right up asking if we were going there.  He was just jumping out of his skin to see the diggers, crane and skid steer loaders.  We arrived just in time for the dancing digger.  We had pulled ahead of my parents to get a good set to see it so I was juggling the video camera and the still camera and the cell phone to get a picture to send to Lori.  It was not an easy juggling event for me.  The dancing digger swayed and went up and down.  It was not something any one should try at home but was pretty amazing to see. 

Every night for the last few weeks out bedtime reading selection in Construction ABC's.  The first letter is A and it is for aerial lift.  Baylor almost always asks what it does and we found out at the rodeo.  It was disheartening to me when I climbed on behind another mother and child and the operator mumbled to his coworker, "weight?".  I know I am a big girl but was I really pushing the weight limit of the lift.  It really hit me. But as usual I like to feed my feelings so I had a little ice cream from the Turkey Hill stand later.  Baylor loved the lift!  Thank you for manning the camera Grandma. 

There was lots of stands for kids to participate in playing or building.  Baylor spied the sand pile with the diggers and could not keep his eyes off of them. He waited by this one until the kid was done and almost lost his turn when a bigger kid tried to cut in front of him.  He loves these diggers!  There were blocks hidden in the sand for the kids to find.  They had numbers on them and could pick a prize from the same numbered basket.  It was rigged because they would hid a block right in front of each kid so everyone was a winner.  Baylor cared less about the blocks.  He just wanted to dig. 

And then he wanted to ride the pedal tractor.  He needed help but kept his feet on the pedals the entire time. 

The machine operators were actually competing while we were all watching.  This backhoe was set up to pick up basketballs off the orange cones and then dump them in the basketball hoop.  One operator picked up all three balls at once and got all three in the hoop one rolling in after another.  Amazing. 

The one was picking up buckets and stacking them up one inside another.  It was a huge digger with a huge bucket!  Then he had to take the stack and drop them in a barrel. 

There were only two crane operators competing and from what I could tell they had to move the arm through the arc without swinging the ball wildly about and then dunking it in one barrel and swing around to dunk it in the other barrel. 

This one was picking up the pipe with rope that was run through it and having to set it down on the two boards in the right. 

Here is the one picking up basketballs.  One other digger was doing something with golf balls but we kept missing it in action. 

Then there was the skid steer barrel racing, just like in a rodeo. Because of all the rain the ground was so torn up it was amazing they could manage it.

This operator had to first pick up the buckets off the posts and then put them back on the posts. 

Baylor loved it!!  He could have sat here and watched for hours.  He was not interested in getting in one.  They had some sitting around for the kids to get in but he turned it down every time. 

On our way out they had the dump truck obstacle course going one.  This dude backed up too far and knocked down the 2 x 4. He does have a trailer on the back so I thought he did pretty good weaving in and out of the course, backwards! 

Life Lion was there also but Baylor did not want to see it any closer than this. 

Maybe next year he will.  I am totally putting this on the calendar for next year. And telling all my friends with boys.  It was another little boy Heaven.