Tuesday evening after work Buck mentioned that he would be driving to the Atlanta area on Thursday to tour a Caterpillar factory. Reed Mining has nine trucks with the engines they build there. Wednesday morning he asked me if I wanted to go with him. I jumped at the chance! We drove over to Griffin, Georgia on Wednesday afternoon and spent the night. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express (usually a nice place) but ~ they put us in a smoking room after I had requested non smoking, the remote to the TV didn't work, and the faucet on the sink leaked. Neither of us wanted to move to another room (too much trouble) so we made the most of it and didn't let that stop us from enjoying our little road trip.
Of course Buck had some work to do.
I drove part of the time but we hit 58 mpg while he was driving.
The sign at the entrance
The front of the building.
I guess building a Caterpillar engine can be liken to top secret espionage. There was a guard to buzz us in, we had to sign in and out, and wait for an escort through the building. We were not to take cell phones or cameras inside. Everyone had to wear a hard hat, safety goggles, a vest, and hard toed shoes. In my case, I didn't have those, they provided me with something called a "clacker" that is basically a hard toe that attaches to your shoe with rubber bands. Then we had headsets so we could hear our guide. We were joined by four men from Thompson Tractor.
They catered a nice lunch and we heard lots of interesting things about engines. (yawn)
It was a fun trip, I met some nice guys, and we had dinner at Olive Garden on the way home (where I ordered a tiramisu to go)
4 days until we pick Jennifer, Sarah, and Claire up at the airport!
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