If You're Ever In Dearborn, Michigan

The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan is really very interesting. We made the final call to go to it because they were showing a special display of artifacts from the Titanic. It turned out that the tickets for that exhibit were all sold out, so we didn't get to see them. The rest of the museum turned out to be very entertaining, and it seemed to culminate a lot of the industrial historical experiences we have had on our journey.

Here we are nearing the end of our journey, right where we were when we started, staring at old trains.

Izzy and Hannah were the engineers.

These stage coaches strung together are the third oldest train ever run in the country.

Hannah and Izzy were stoked to be able to make really loud noises on purpose in public. The buttons make train sounds.

This car was the second to cross the United States.

It's route was basically our planned journey home.

The kids have grown to love the computer displays in museums.

An early tent trailer, it hasn't really changed that much, looks a lot like ours.

There was a whole section of the auto history devoted to car camping and road trips just like the one we are on.

This one is for all my VW bus friends. You know who you are.

I wondered how much of our current journey was due to the artifacts suggested in this display.

Cool! The alternative engine section... in a Ford Museum!

Electric car history

Can you tell which electric car was designed in the 80s?

They had a whole pretend mechanic shop.

The kids got to pretend to work on a car.

Well, the kids and dad really.

This is a display of the history of the family car, ending with a minivan.

Low-ri-der

Yeah, I'm just a sucker for a beautiful car.

They have a real working Diner inside the museum.

We stopped and ate and sat on the spinney stools. The interior of this place is really beautiful.

The museum had an endless array of gadgets, industrial widgets, airplanes, and engine type things.

It also had a whole design section, including a history of furniture design.

Then I found this and was pretty much astounded. The museum has a whole history of American lifestyles section, and included in it was this hippie geodesic dome.

The dome had a window open and was playing Grateful Dead and Van Morrison inside.

Not far from the Dome is another version of Buckminster Fuller's vision, with more of the modern touches.

Something about the two versions of Fuller structures made me think long and hard about our house on Paradise Road and the fantasy of modular yet individual structures set up in the woods that seemed to lead to Elijah and I living on a mountain side for seven years. This will not be the end of that discussion.

Among all the other vehicles was this weiner mobile, which Izzy was fascinated by. He couldn't believe it was a real thing.

So we fed him a hot dog and tried to explain commercials to him.