Museum, Mall and Meal

The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI in impressive.  Along with Greenfield Village, the museum and grounds have some similarities to the way the grounds are laid out in historical Williamsburg in Virginia.  We just visited the museum on this trip.

We spent a few hours there yesterday and throughly enjoyed it.

It has a lot more than cars on display.  In fact, I was surprised to see locomotives, airplanes and pop culture items.  And there is a lot more there than just artifacts from the Ford contributions to Americana.

It was really well done!  The first thing we were drawn to was the presidential limousines.  It had one from President Reagan all the way back to the fancy horse drawn carriage preferred by Teddy Roosevelt.

This is the presidential limousines of President Reagan and President Eisenhower.   These are the last ones on display since now all presidential limousines are destroyed for security reasons after they are retired.

I liked the display, "100 Years of the Automobile in American Life".  I also liked the Honda, Toyota and VW.  It had all kinds of cars on display, not just Fords. 

 I liked the Model A (from Chile).   You'll recognize the Ford Mustang, Cougar and Chevy.

Henry Ford was a fan of the outdoors and ventured into the early RV industry with a camp vehicle he used with friends (Thomas Edison, John Burroughs and John Muir - dubbed the Vagabonds) in the 1920's.

Later, in the 1940's Charles Lindbergh wrote a letter to Henry Ford and asked to borrow a travel trailer Ford had built.  Lindbergh used it to spend time writing and get away from the distractions of city life.

One of my favorites on display was the 1959 Volkswagon micro bus with the Westfalia camper unit.

We had two different VW camper vans which were our first 'RV's".  While in Germany in the early 1980's were bought a used 1978 model.  Later, while in Albuquerque, we upgraded to a 1989 model.

On our way out, we looked at the 1952 Oscar Mayer 'Weinermobile'.

What kid didn't want a ride around the block in that?

We stayed at the museum long after lunch time so we stopped at Panera in nearby downtown Dearborn.

Next, we went over to the mall and did some shopping.  We are looking for a wedding outfit for Pam to wear to Meghan's brother Brad (and fiance Christine's) wedding in August.

We didn't find anything  and returned to Haas Lake RV campground during rush hour.  The day was spectacularly gorgeous and we spent some time outside.

I built another fire with my firestarter (no matches) and we we decided to cook hot dogs and sit and talk by the lake for a while.

Pam went inside and watched the Yankees/Rays game.  I finished up outside, put chairs and tables away and joined her.

That was our day.  We loved the museum, spent some time at the mall and finished up with a traditional cook out meal (hotdogs) at the campsite.

Thanks for viewing the Roadrunner Chronicles!