The Henry Ford

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Today we are again glad that we have rented a car. We head into Dearborn, Michigan to The Henry Ford. This use to be called the Henry Ford Museum, now they are trying to tie Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum into just The Henry Ford. Oh well, to us older generation we will probably still refer to each use separately.

Anyhow, once arriving at the museum we were greeted with so much to see and so little time. We started out in the gift shop, ho hum! But from there we found our way into the museum with the dollhouses of old. Some dated back to the late 1800's. Interesting to see. Then we wound our way back to argiculture. Wow, to see some of the old tractors, etc. you wonder how farmers could make a living. Of course there were many more places to see. We found the "heros of the sky", the automobile in American Life and not to be missed were the locomotives. In the museum they have a DC-3 airplane with a wingspan of 95 feet. They have the JFK presidential limousine that Kennedy was assassinated in. Then also the Allegheny Locomotive, it is one of the largest steam locomotives ever built. It weighs 600 tons and is 125 feet long. Yes, we had a wonderful day at the museum. Oh, before I forget you can see an actual roadside diner and one of the original McDonald's signs. Oh, many memories to be had in the museum.

We had visited Greenfield Village many times before so we opted to visit only the museum on this trip. When visiting you can also tour the Rouge Factory and the Benson Ford Research Center, but we just don't have the time for visiting all. We did the museum in one day and one could actually spend about a week in there and see thing really good.