The Jones Team: Dozer Day in Pink Dresses

Leave it to Lucia and Magdalena to wear pink dresses to arguably the most dirty and dusty event we've attended all year. :-)

I wanted to show up right at opening time to Dozer Day in Camas, WA - 11 am - but after hitting up Costco and going the wrong way on HWY 14 from the 205, we rolled in with everyone else at 11:45. I was fortunate to get a decent parking spot within sight of Will Call where our tickets were. I strapped on the Bjorn, hauled all three kids from the minivan and trekked to the entrance.

As soon as the girls got their yellow plastic "hardhats" we were off. Dozer Day was MUCH different than I expected. I thought it was that there would be pieces of large equipment OFF and in a safe state that kids could climb on like jungle gyms. Instead, there were dump truck rides, and all sorts of pieces of machinery from backhoes to diggers being operated by professionals with kids riding on their laps in a roped off area. Surrounding that were booths and "play structures" made of concrete and plastic tunnels, and lots and lots of dust.

We walked through some of the little booths (the girls liked the Hasson house and coloring pages) and meandered to where the lines for operating the equipment were. Needless to say, when I saw the lines about 8-10 kids (with 1-2 adults each) per piece of equipment, I balked. Instead, I steered the girls towards the concrete tunnel play area, and they happily played for a few minutes. Then Lucia really wanted to ride on a piece of equipment, so we stood in line for about 7 minutes. During that time frame, one kid finished a ride and one more went through a full cycle (note for the Operational Efficiency folks out there - this place is anything but! They have a volunteer who takes the kid off the ride, brings another one to it, waits for the 3 minute ride, and repeats process. The taking from and bringing to portion is about 2 minutes, so that makes for a 5 minute round trip ride, 2/5ths of which is "wasted" time. The process improvement part of me wanted to scream to get the next kid staged for immediate loading, and do the walking part within a safe distance while the next kid was riding, not to mention a 3 minute ride is way too long with so many people waiting... but what can you do?).

Anyway, realizing that there were about 6 kids in front of us and it was 5 minutes per round trip ride, not to mention that it was 12:45 by that time, I convinced Lucia that we didn't have time to wait for the ride and would have to do that part next year. She was consoled when I promised her ice cream on the way out, and the girls ran through some black plastic tunnels then we were off. Magdalena tripped on the way out, crying and scraping her knee, not to mention getting dirtier, and me with JP in the bjorn trying to help her... thank goodness for the port-a-potty handwashing stations with running water and real soap, then the nice girls who sold us Sponge Bob ice-cream bars two for the price of 1 (who knew a little ice cream would cost $3?! I didn't bring enough cash!) and with each girl getting stickier and full of artificial colors and flavors, we left. John Paul picked the moment of our departure to poop through his clothes, so I spent some quality time changing his diaper and wiping everyone off with Baby Wipes before we finally escaped Dozer Day around 1:15 pm.

All in all, we definitely had a good time, and we will probably go again. One of my neighbors whose husband took their 5 year old son and waited 25 minutes each to ride a dozer and a backhoe said that this event was the highlight of this little boy's life to date, so I definitely need to get JP there again. I know Lucia would have loved the rides, and Magdalena too, but I just wasn't willing to wait. The learnings are that you either need to go EARLY and bribe them to let you in and ride before the crowd shows up, or go late - like 2 or 3 pm when the lines die down. There were very few cars entering when we left around 1:15, and I heard that lots of people come early and leave around 2, so later in the day the lines are minimal. Next year!