Here's Bill & Joan!!!!

TODAY: We drove 24 miles to the Ford Museum in Dearborn. We paid $136.50 including the Museum, 2 days in the Village and the Factory Tour minus coupons and discounts. We started with the Museum Wow one can only describe it as an experience not to be missed. Presidential Limousines, Scores of autos form the Model T, Tucker, GM models, Stanley Steamer, Packard, Studebaker, Hudson, Fraiser, and many models I forgot or never saw before. About ½ dozen Trains, stage couches, Buggies, sleds and more. We saw old time farm equipment, steam engines, balers, thrashers, reapers, corn planters, tomato harvester. Airplanes built by Henry Ford including the Admiral Byrd excursion over the South Pole. A replica of the Wright Bros. plane and the first all metal plane built by Ford. Joan scouted the furniture era and I took pictures of the big engines that were 20 feet high and 75 feet long that generated electricity for New York City. There were several Hugh oil pumps run by steam, water wheels, and turbines of several designs. We spent about 4 hours taking pictures and touring the indoor elegant museum with its chandlers, platinum windows, marble columns and haring bone parquet oak floors. Hungry we headed for the Weiner mobile Café. A Weiner mobile is displayed just outside the café. I had the foot long Texas dog with chili and peppers. Joan had the Greek salad. Joan toured the gift shops while I relaxed on a bench. Next we walked outside the Ford Museum and got on the shuttle bus to the Rouge Ford Factory Tour. Wow! The factory complex is I mile by 3 miles. The Ford family Farm is within 5 miles of this location. We were directed to a theater for a 15 minute movie about the history of the rouge facility now over 100 years old. It showed the early assembly lines and how employment went from hundreds to over 10,000 employees. In WWII the factory stopped making cars and manufactured military jeeps, trucks and more. The industrial revolution changed everybody’s life. The middle class was developed when Henry Ford doubled the wages of his workers and now his employees could afford to buy the car they were building plus homes and more. Next they guided us to a second theater that demonstrated the assembly line of today with sound effects, like a Disney movie. Next we took a self guided tour of the Final Assembly Line that offered a 1/3 mile cat walk overlooking the assembly lines. Everything was in motion. The floor was moving with the partially completed F150 Trucks. They had dozens of video screens explaining each process. Along the way a guide would point out and talk about a certain way things were getting done. I was all eyes and ears. Amazing after the truck is painted they take off the doors to install the insides. They produce 60 new trucks in one hour. That’s one truck a minute. Joan asked who is buying all these new vehicles. We also got a roof top tour showing the 11 acres of roof that is all planted in grass that retains the water and keeps the building a comfortable temp. Rain water is collected and used to water the landscaping. The Factory Tour lasted about 2 hours.