Poking around southwest of my beloved Mandan, I came across this behemoth. It’s actually not that big by today’s standards, but it’s still a formidable hunk of metal. Driven by a small two-cylinder engine, with two spark plugs per cylinder, this machine probably hasn’t moved in years. I suspect it will soon, however.

Check it out: chain drive on the bucket arm! Pretty cool. I took a lot of pictures of this piece of hardware, but don’t have time to post them here just yet. Somehow I resisted the urge to climb all over the thing. It’s a lot bigger than the ones I used to play with in my sandbox as a kid! I guess the little boy in me is still mesmerized by heavy equipment such as this.