Ha! You thought I was done with Iron Invasion 2022 didn't you? At most events I attend, I take photos with both my camera and phone. I tend to post things on Instagram/Facebook from my phone and the blog tends to have photos just from my camera. I took enough photos with my phone to, from, and at Iron Invasion that I thought they deserved their own blogpost so here we go!
The Grom is so small, it fits in the back of the van with enough room to put the table up.
Grom is my co-pilot.
I did a little sightseeing on the way to Davenport including Iowa's Largest Fryin' Pan.
Not to be outdone by the frying pan, this is the world's largest wooden nickel:
You can't see the world's largest wooden nickel and not also see the world's largest truck stop,
Iowa 80.
Since it was my first time in Davenport, I absolutely needed to stop at
Antique Archaeology. Nearly 10 years ago, I had a photo featured on the show American Pickers. Check out my blogpost about that
here. I still find the credits hilarious.
The place had a lot of cool stuff but much of it was tagged Not For Sale.
After I finally rolled into the fairgrounds, I spotted John Wells, who organizes both Iron Invasion and Vintage Torquefest. He's like a ringmaster at a circus and he seems to be everywhere. You can tell John enjoys his events just as much as anyone else and is often leading and/or participating in the fun.
Stickers:
I picked up the latest
Rolling Heavy Magazine from Matt Grayson himself. He was set up in the Last Gasp building all weekend selling Rolling Heavy stuff.
You can see from the schedule how awesome this event was - stuff was going on constantly with lots of different things, depending on what you're into.
The swap meet score that got away...
Vans, choppers, Heavy Clothing, Rolling Heavy, Natanic's Pin-Ups, live music and more, all inside the Last Gasp building:
The poor grass - it got a bit singed.
I was never really able to "show" my van properly at this event. I parked outside the Last Gasp building and slept in there at night. I used my Grom to get around. People saw it from the outside, but I like it when I have the opportunity to open it up, especially at night. Of course, I would have needed to bring a tent or something for all my gear.
In the front of the fairgrounds, there was a massive car show too.
I took the Grom over to the mini bike track after the racing was done. More about that in a sec.
Mini bike parade! The Grom counts, right? I did it anyway.
One of the people who organized the mini bike races was nice enough to take some video of me trying out the jump. This is a still from the video. I easily hit that little jump 10 times - so fun!
I didn't spend too much time at the dirt track so I'm sure I missed a lot of the action. Again, there's just so much to do!
Heading home, I spotted another old Dodge at Iowa 80.
I also had a Squatch sighting on the highway.
Great gas station name or
greatest gas station name?
Back in Minnesota...
Since I was driving right past Owatonna, I had to stop and see the "field of dreams" that is the
Steele County Free Fair dirt track. Back in 2015 and 2016, this was home to Moto Mania and Moto Mania 2: The Big Deuce. Relive the insanity in my blogposts
here. I really wanted to take the Dodge for a hot lap Uncle Charlie style but ultimately didn't think it was a good idea.
Here are some souvenirs from my trip:
So yeah, Iron Invasion was awesome. That's enough photos. I'm done now.
