Caterpillar Visitors Center

What a great place to visit.  This afternoon when Bryce finished up working  for the day, We went to the Caterpillar Visitors Center. This is a museum of Caterpillar Construction Equipment. I thought, I would be bored. Let me tell you from the moment we walked in to the time we left; I found this museum so interesting.  I had a great conversation with their wonderful staff Kim, Jean and Mindy.  Then Jean and Kim lead us into the virtual ride of the 797F Mining Truck.  The seats vibrated a bit according to the engine and truck movement. The movie lead us into a customer’s site down a gravel road.  We could feel the vibrations in our seat as the 797F moved.  This is so worth visiting; you should add it to your vacation spot if you come this way.

If you are traveling by boat there is a free dockage with electricity. There are two docking areas here: one area near the bridge where we were.  The other docks were on the other side of the Spirit of Peoria.  Quite nice floating docks, but the bridge docks do not have cleats, so you need to tie up to the deck.  The other docks have cleats.  Some boaters complain about traffic from the bridge at the bridge dock.  But we barely heard it.   There is very little wake here except from the trawlers and power boats that pass by in the morning headed to the Peoria lock.  The tows run quite slow.  For boaters, Peoria should make this area no-wake.

The Caterpillar Visitors Center. It’s about a 2 minute from the water front.

Look I get a seniors discount now days..

Okay I don’t think I want to play with this.  But it does look like fun to play with.

Holy-crap this is the real size of this 797 F  Truck. I thought we were seated inside a theater; but in reality we were seating inside the dump truck bed. They use these trucks all around the world in coal and metal mines. My ankle is glowing in this picture. LOL.. I have my Fitbit on and the flash reflected on the night reflector.  

This is crazy look how small Bryce looks in front of this monster.

Watch-out!!! Bryce is in the driver seat.

I took This picture of this Cat because it just caught my attention.   It shows this equipment in its element.

This old Caterpillar was found on the side of a farmers mountain.  These old CATs are on loan from a Museum out west.   I thought that was pretty cool the best thing is all these old Cats still run. 

This is a Cat diesel generator.  A standard product from Caterpillar.

Here you can unleash your engineer design and design your own Caterpillar. 

Get this… this is a propeller blade that they use on Tows, crew ships, and coast guard boats.  Caterpillar make propellers for boats! 

Jean and Mindy it was such a pleasure speaking with you two today. Your knowledge of the Caterpillar blew me away.

Last post we showed a picture of the “Spirit of Peoria”. https://spiritofpeoria.com/about-the-boat  This is a quite interesting boat appropriately powered by twin Caterpillar engines driving actual paddle wheels.

Here is a picture of our route we are and a link to track my tours: http://trackmytour.com/35L17  Track my tours also has a picture at each point that we stopped.

As always thanks for following us.