Sunday, June 18, 2017, Belleville, MI (Dearborn)

Day 38

Dearborn is home to The Henry Ford, a 5 venue complex that cannot be seen in one day. We spent our first day there at The Greenfield Village. A 90 acre village of 7 historic districts which included the Ford birthplace, the Wright Brothers original cycle shop, Noah Webster’s house, Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park lab among others. Henry Ford opened this place in 1929 and had the foresight (and the money) to bring together these historic places. Edison was at the opening as was President Hoover. Webster’s house had a display that included an original of volume I and II of the first published American dictionary in 1828, 70,000 words. Perhaps the most exciting part of the village is the fleet of Model T’s that you can ride in. We rode in a 1914 and a 1923 Model T. The drivers were very knowledgeable about the cars, produced from 1908 to 1927.  When I inquired how many were produced, I promptly got an answer of 15,007,031. We also rode the last regularly operating coal fueled steam locomotive. Fun but stinky when the wind blows the wrong way. We also watched a portion of an 1867 baseball game - no gloves, underhand pitching and no balls called unless the lone umpire determines the pitcher is not acting gentlemanly by not getting near the plate. And no strikes called unless the batter is not swinging at “good” pitches. A full, fun and fantastic day.

Saturday, June 17, 2017, Belleville, MI (Detroit)

Day 37

We headed into Detroit for the Eastern Market. Six buildings and several streets of all kinds of goodies. We grazed enough to call it lunch. Then went to the GM Renaissance Center, a huge complex of 5 towers with a 5 story “tropical” atrium. We saw a few palm trees inside but could not tell if they we real or plastic. In the Center, we wanted to visit the GM display of past, present and future concept cars but discovered it was closed about a year ago for renovations which renovations have not yet even begun. Then we tried to visit the roof top garden and found out it was removed awhile ago. So we did manage a hike along the Riverwalk while we were downtown.  In the afternoon we visited the Detroit Institute of the Arts on the Wayne State University campus. This is the site of the Diego Rivera murals representing Detroit industry. The murals are fantastic and a definite must see. Detroit has a Greektown section so we had dinner there at Santorini’s, with enough leftovers for another dinner. On the way out of Detroit, we drove by the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant, the first factory built by Henry Ford in 1904. It broke production records in 1908 and closed in 1910 due to the need for more space.