More of the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village

Hello;

Greenfield Village is an idyllic village created by Henry Ford based on his early experiences in life. He was a small-town farm boy. Within the walls of Greenfield Village are houses of many notable people, disassembled from their original locations, carefully catalogued board by board and reassembled in the Village. For example, the poet Robert Frost's house, George Washington Carver's cabin, a stone cottage shipped over from the Cotswolds in England, etc. There is a town square, a fully functioning steam locomotive with train rides encircling the Village. Rides on original Model T cars, horse & buggy rides, a functioning antique carousel, and restaurants (2) offering food prepared with 19th century recipes are all part of the experience. In all it was a wonderful addition to our travel log. We also took the factory tour at Ford's huge River Rouge auto assembly plant. Once the world's largest manufacturing facility it has been converted into a state-of-the-art assembly plant to produce Ford F-150 pick-up trucks. We saw 2 films on Ford's advanced approach to auto manufacturing before entering the building on the mezzanine level overlooking the assembly line. Different stations were denoted where the various steps of assembly take place. Amazingly, every 53 seconds a new Ford F-150 rolls off the line. Three shifts work around the clock, 7 days a week to keep up with the sales demand. It was quite the experience!

The next day we left Dearborn for the Port Huron/Sarnia US-Canadian Border Station. Crossing over was trouble free and we continued to Buffalo through Ontario on their 402, 403, 401 and QEW highways. We crossed at Niagara Falls, continued to Batavia, and checked into a campground near my sister Marilyn and her family. We will be there for a couple of days before moving on to Northern New York.

Dick