Something So Big: Swimming & Green in the land of Moline

Last week was our ONE WEEK OFF from school. Summer school obligations were over, so we took a little trip down to the Quad Cities and stayed in the Stony Creek Inn of Moline, Illinois.

Our hotel room was fabulously large enough for all of us, and it was decorated in the hunter/fisher motif. It only took us 1 hour of driving around the Quad Cities to decide on this hotel, as we were looking for a waterpark resort (which they do not have). We were all so glad to get back to this place, which was the first place we had stopped!

Our kitchen for one night. I made a trip over to the local Hy-vee for supper, and we enjoyed watching the London Olympics, too!

The next morning it was over to the John Deere Pavilion. The history of it was my favorite part, of course. It all started with John Deere's invention of the steel plow. Sounds simple enough, right?

Then came the tractors....

...and the BIGGER tractors! I mean, look at the flight of stairs just to get up into this combine!!

The neat thing about the Pavilion was that it was VERY hands-on, as Shae demonstrates.

Many people think of John Deere Green (agriculture), which is just one part of it. There are also the construction and forestry divisions. And probably some divisions I haven't even learned about yet.

Check out the autonomous tractor. No, there is no seat for a driver...because as the name suggests, it is driven by ITSELF! And yes, it is already out in the fields in some places!!

The Discovery Zone was fascinating for kids young and old. Did you know that corn is one of the ingredients in glue, or that soy is in toothpaste? I didn't.