We can’t drive anywhere without a constant commentary from the backseats - “GIANT excavator! Skid steer! ‘Ment mixer!” I’m certain I never knew how many different types of trucks and construction equipment existed before these two came along. It’s incredibly impressive how many of them they can identify, and how quickly they can spot them as we drive down a street.
So it’s not an understatement to say that “Touch-a-Truck” events are literal dreams come true around here. Unfortunately the last time the big one near us happened was in 2018. At the time, we had gone to church with no idea it was happening. As we were heading home afterwards, we stumbled on a field full of every kind of truck you could imagine. It was too good to pass up, so we went even though we were past nap time and without sunscreen or snacks. It was so much fun that we couldn’t wait until the next year when we planned to take full advantage of it. Except there wasn’t one that year, and then the pandemic ensured there wasn’t one the year after that either.
We weren’t holding our breath for this year, but against all odds, it was announced that the event was on. So as nervous as crowds make us these days, we knew we had to go. As far as pandemic outings, it’s not bad - the whole thing is outside, obviously, and there are enough trucks and pieces of equipment that it’s easy to spread out. We also did a lot of planning to ensure success - we got there super early, the kids had just ate (so we didn’t have to go near the food booths), and we walked the outside boarder of the event which kept us away from any groups of people.
Honestly, the tiny humans don’t love crowds much anyway, and they weren’t interested in going into any of the trucks, so it’s likely we’d have done the same thing, pandemic or not. And E and G were so happy, you would have thought we’d brought them to Disney World. They were jumping up and down, screaming, and of course naming every truck they saw. It also helped that we weren’t interested in the trucks that most people were. Forget the fire trucks, our kids found a stand on lawnmowers and it became the highlight of the trip (and only thing they’d actually “touch”).
Another highlight of the day - it was our first outing as a family of five! When we were all in the car together, it felt pretty cool. There were a lot of people in that car! E & G were so excited to see baby F sitting there next to them.
It was a peak into our future, where we’ll hopefully tackle more adventures together, and it was pretty cool.
