Train, Planes and Automobiles.

Up bright and early to make tracks to Detroit thru Ontario. Stopped in one of Canada's On Route Service Center. It appears all of the On Route centers are Leed certified and have a small foot print on this earth, so they say.

Crossed the Detroit River via the Ambassador Bridge and answered some questions for US Customs. One of the questions the Agent asked was Citizen ?? Which I responded Yes, to which he said, everyone is a citizen someplace, what country. Duhhh. Why is it every time I go thru custom I get nervous, with nothing to be nervous about.

We head immediately to the Best Western in Dearborn MI. I booked this via the The Henry Ford site, because it included two tickets to two tours at the museum and offered free shuttles back and forth from the hotel to the museum. The cost of the tickets are $84, so the hotel seemed like a reasonable price. We had to go to the hotel first knowing our room was not available, but we had to get the tickets. We left the MINI at the hotel, took the free shuttle to the museum for an afternoon of fun.

Where to start on The Henry Ford. They offer 3 tours, the museum, Greenfield Village and the Rouge Factory tour. We opted for the first 2. Ford had always been interested in history, having restored his family farm, collected a good size collection of Americana memorabilia in the early 1900's. In 1923 he purchased the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA (the one Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would frequent and write about), spent 2 million bucks restoring it and moved some historic buildings to its location. This purchase inspired the beginning of the museum and village in Dearborn. Henry was misquoted as saying "History is bunk" which really pissed him off and he formulated a plan for the museum and village in 1927 and began execution of that plan in 1928. He hired Robert O Derrick as an architect how proposed a replica of Independence Hall in Philly as the first building. In that same year, Ford acquired the remaining buildings of his friend, Thomas Edison's Menlo park for the village. As they say, the rest is history.


You can scroll all the way to the bottom and get just the Slide Show if you so desire.

Independence Hall replica The Henry Ford

There is so much to see, read and take in, it is definitely information overload. I felt like a kid stopping to see an exhibit, catching the next one out of the corner of my eye and running to that, feeling guilty I didn't spend enough time on the one I just left. The camera became my visual recorder so I could take a more leisurely tour on the comfort of my monitor. Lets see, what do they have. Trains, Planes and Automobiles, Harvesters, furniture, neon, a Diner, Buckminster Fuller stuff and then some. After seeing the initial presidents limos, I said we have to be organized about how we move thru the museum. MeAsWe spent much more time reading the information than I did. The pictures I posted here are some of my favorites, special place in history, made an impression on me or was just downright kewl. Visit the expanded slide show at the end of the post.

So whats so special about this chandelier, Really nothing but I like the detail

Allegheny H-8 2-6-6-6s ~Articulated locomotive usually means a steam locomotive with one or more engine units which can move independent of the main frame. This is done to allow a longer locomotive to negotiate tighter curves.  How did they get this in here

One of my all time favorite cars GT40 Ford and one of the most successful GT cars of the 60's. First all American car to win Le Mans 

Brings me back to the days of Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart and Emerson Fittipaldi
 

Tucker 48, Preston's very advanced car done in by a SEC investigation, stock fraud rumors and the Big 3 might have played a part in the demise of the
Tucker Car Corporation. Only 51 of these cars were built.

Honda CB750-4 often referred to as the First Superbike

So what is this picture of. I took it because of the chair. My parents had this exact chair on our porch. My brother disputed me (he is older) that the
chairs we had did not have the black ornamental marks. Later that day we were looking thru some of the pictures my father took in the 50's
and VIOLA there it was.

I really love NEON and 50's cars, plus MeAsWe is in the pic.

The Tin Goose, plans built by Henry Ford. Company that built them was the Stout Metal Airplane Division.
Stout, a bold and imaginative salesman, sent a mimeographed form letter to leading manufacturers, blithely asking for $1,000 and adding: "For your one thousand dollars you will get one definite promise: You will never get your money back." Stout raised $20,000, including $1,000 each from Edsel and Henry Ford

Douglas DC-3 ~ Its speed and range revolutionized air transport in the 1930s and 1940s. Over 16,000 were produced

Les Paul guitar sits outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Exhibit, which is another whole museum to itself.

The Dymaxion House was developed by inventor and architect Buckminster Fuller to address several perceived shortcomings with existing homebuilding techniques. Fuller designed several versions of the house at different times — all of them factory manufactured kits, assembled on site, intended to be suitable for any site or environment and to use resources efficiently. A key design consideration of the design was ease of shipment and assembly.

This is the bus that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat
to a white person per Alabama law, leading to her arrest. This lead
to the Mississippi Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks was"the first lady of civil rights"

If you are in Detroit area this museum is a must see. We will be going back again to take in the museum again for sure.

CLICK HERE - EXPANDED SLIDESHOW