Oddest place you’ve driven farm equipment

[moresmoke]

The how far have you driven post got me to thinking. Where is the oddest place you’ve driven a piece of farm equipment?

For me, having worked for a few different manufacturers, I’ve driven a swather through downtown Nashville, TN to park on the sidewalk outside the convention center.

I’ve driven a combine back and forth through Wichita Falls, TX. Anyone that knows what that 287, 281, 277 interchange looks like can imagine how interesting that got.

Have also run a Massey tractor with a 16’ mower conditioner through Great Falls, MT. Tractor had the European high speed gears so you could keep up with traffic pretty good.

 

[craigco]

Drove across the Royal Gorge Bridge. Highest suspension bridge in US.

 

[jhwis]

Not really an odd place, but I had to rake hay one time while holding my son who was a year old or so. He was sleeping. The odd part was it was on the WD-45 which was a bumpy bumpy ride. He slept through the whole thing. I never told my wife or my mom for personal health reasons.....

 

[560Dennis]

Dad took load of baled hay five miles to railroad yard and loaded hay into box car.

 

[Ultradog MN]

I live in the city so have driven my tractors to all sorts of places. McDonalds drive thru, bakery, Menards and Home Depot, beer store, gas stations, etc. I stay off the main
thoroughfares and take the back streets.
If I park and go inside there is usually someone wanting to ask about it or they're taking a photo of it when I come back out.
An old tractor makes all sorts of people smile.

 

[8850dave]

I drove a John Deere 8850 from SW Michigan to North Central Illinois through south side of Chicago via RT 30

 

[DPittman]

Drove our MM Z to work a few times. One of our machine operators was looking all over the parking lot trying to find my trailer cause he couldn’t believe someone would do that. Another guy didn’t know how I was going to get home in the dark (2nd shift). Lights and flashers and a road Another guy wanted a ride. I obliged

 

[formerly ny bill]

Center Court in the Oakdale Mall, Johnson City, NY. Our county Farm Bureau used to have Farm Days at the Mall with tractors, livestock, and other exhibits. One year, I took the 504. Another year, my 1926 Regular which made quite a racket continually backfiring, echoing thru the empty mall during setup after Mall hours.

 

[Texasmark]

I bought an MF 860 (I think was the number or close to that) combine without the 24' header mounted, South of Dallas and drove it 80 miles one Saturday up to my farm North of Dallas. My son was supposed to be the "wide load alarm" function but as usual he had his head in the sand.....ran off and left me numerous times.....I couldn't believe it but it went without incident....was glad to get it home.

 

[RJKeith]

Not really an odd place, but I had to rake hay one time while holding my son who was a year old or so. He was sleeping. The odd part was it was on the WD-45 which was a bumpy bumpy ride. He slept through the whole thing. I never told my wife or my mom for personal health reasons.....

Rock-a-bye baby.

 

[Gordy in Mn.]

I drove a D21 cat scraper down I 35 from Bloomington to Burnsville Mn in the early seventies right across the Minnesota River bridge. Was about 8 am during rush hour traffic too. Gordy in MN. (Was for a well known contractor too)

 

[joeysmith]

I drove a D21 cat scraper down I 35 from Bloomington to Burnsville Mn in the early seventies right across the Minnesota River bridge. Was about 8 am during rush hour traffic too. Gordy in MN. (Was for a well known contractor too)

Guy here tried that on back county roads years ago with a couple quarry trucks.
I think he ended up buying 3 small bridges.
They didn't crumble buy were damaged enough they were deemed unsafe

 

[rrlund]

Geez, I'm trying to think. Our club crosses the Mackinac bridge every year, but I've never gone. We drive all the way around Crystal lake every Fourth of July past all the cottages and through downtown. I've been on plenty of drives where we'll drive right in to different towns and park out in back of the businesses and go to downtown restaurants. I've driven too far in to a few towns and ended up on four lane with center turn lanes. That's not a real good idea.

As soon as I started reading the post, something flashed in to my mind that involved being in the wrong place, but not with a tractor. A friend was telling me that he had to take a dead cow to Michigan State University for autopsy and got lost on campus. He said he ended up down by the law school driving around with a dead cow in the back of the pickup, feet sticking straight up in the air. One of life's more embarrassing moments.

 

[DanielW]

A few odd spots for me, but none of them too crazy. Bought a Gleaner F last year I drove 4+ hours home, and part of that was along a busy stretch of the Trans Canada highway. Not an 'odd' spot, but certainly a little uncomfortable with so much traffic on a busy holiday weekend.

About 10 years ago bought a Deere 670 rake in January and borrowed my uncle's new F250 to tow it the 160 km home. The truck's GPS was showing me to go on the more major roads - even with the 'avoid highways' feature on. I saw on my good-old paper map a thin line that appeared to be a small backroad that cut of a large section of the route. Decided I knew better than the GPS and go that route. Started out ok on what appeared to be a small, dirt backroad through the bush that was plowed for the few small houses along the first few miles of it. But very narrow - barely wide enough for the rake, and certainly not enough room to turn around. And it quickly got worse. Turned out it was an old abandoned railroad line. Soon found myself in a foot of snow, towing that rig over some unmaintained railroad bridges that clearly hadn't seen anything heavier than an ATV cross them in many years. Got very concerned I'd end up with my Uncles' new truck (and rake) planted in the bush - many miles from the nearest road or house. The last stretch wasn't so bad, because it was used by snowmobilers. But I was very worried one would come whipping around a corner at warp speed and find some goofwit hauling haying equipment down their trail in the middle of winter. But thankfully no accidents.

It was certainly nice scenery winding my way over all these tiny wrought iron bridges and streams. Wish I hadn't been so stressed out so I could have enjoyed it more.

 

[oliverkid]

When I was at Purdue I hauled a tractor down to put on the front lawn of Lilly Hall for AG week. Drove it down Russel street to Lilly at the beginning of the week. When it was over drove it up University street past all the frat houses, Mackey and Ross Ade to the stadium parking lot to load it back on the trailer.

 

[MeanGene1]

I drove gramps' IH 91 planetary-steer combine from our old train depot up thru Wallace NY to "home" (about a mile) up Route 15 (now 415) which was the "main drag" back then with heavy truck traffic. 9 mph top speed was more than plenty with that steering- especially when you are 10 years old

 

[buickanddeere]

Drove a Deere model 50 in high gear through Stone Road Mall Guelph . Now to be honest the mall was closed , the hallway was wide open to remove displays . The engine was at slowest idle speed . 6th gear is rather slow in those tractors. The entire sprint was about 3-4 tractor lengths.

 

[trackrat]

two come to mind a modified pulling tractor inside a mall in San Antonio it had a blower motor on it built out of a f 30 Farmall tractor they used a big garden tractor to get it in but when we came to pick it up no help soooo we started it and drove it out of there blew the celling tiles out. the other was a backhoe inside of a refrigerated warehouse 20 degrees below zero repairing a leaking fire main 20 minutes in 20 minutes outside it would start trying to freeze up if we didn't

 

[MeanGene1]

In the late 60's a big engineering outfit from Napa bought several DW20 CAT scrapers in the L.A. area, and had to get them home. They loaded up some of the guys, drove them down there, hopped on the scrapers (it was legal to road them back then) and off they went up HWY 99. Pretty interesting sight to see a fleet of scrapers idling in a bar parking lot. My stepdad drove one across the Carquinez Bridge on HWY 80 in Vallejo in 1958. An old friend of mine took one across the southbound Golden Gate Bridge on the weekend. I roaded a pair from Napa to Vallejo and back in the early 80's before they outlawed it.
Another outfit from Napa that was a bit on the cowboy side finished up a job in Santa Rosa in 1988, and had just picked up another job 3 miles away. They weren't about to pay big transports for that, so they figured let's sneak them over at night. Off they go at midnight with 3 631B scrapers- which in addition to no working lights or brakes, had 450hp engines and straight stacks, no mufflers. Got about a mile before the Sheriff's Deputies showed up, after about 20 phone calls

 

[Hayfarmer]

I drove a small tractor with rototiller for FFA years ago. MF30 and 35 Our shop was at the high school and occasionally somone locked the gates to get back there. I drove it down the sidewalks between buildings to get to FFA shop