Thursday, July 9, 2015

Ford Rouge Factory Tour (7/9/2015)

Well, I think we finally finished with Henry Ford, after having spent the last 3 days with him.  First was the Ford Museum, second was Greenfield Village, and today was the tour of the assembly line of the Dearborn Truck Plant, watching them put together Ford 150s.  Unfortunately, we only got to see a small part of the process, from assembling the parts on the doors (lots of parts and wiring goes into those doors) through the installation of the front windshields.  We could only see parts of the process from the ends of the rows, on a catwalk or "elevated walkway", but it was all very interesting.  No pictures of that allowed, however.

A few facts we learned or were told.  It takes 40 hours to build a truck.  When they fill them with fluids, they put 7 gallons of gas in them, for testing, and then driving to the lot.  The trucks are framed up, painted in another building, then taken apart to begin the assembly process.  That's how they keep the red beds on the red trucks, and the black doors on the black trucks.  We wondered. 

They had a frame shortage last week, their supplier fills the needs for two other Ford plants as well as some other brands, and they had to shut the plant down until more frames came in.  There is a yellow cord at each work station that they can pull if they need the assembly line to stop for a little while.  That period of time is preset.  The whole assembly line shuts down at noon for lunch.  Fortunately, we were just finishing our tour, which we did at our own pace, when the 12:00 bell when off.

We did get to take photos outside and from the observation deck.  This is called a "living roof," on top of part of this building. 


 Front of building.

We took a bus from the main entrance over to this huge plant.  Also in this tour were 2 short films, and the "legacy theater" where there was a display of about 6 or 7 Fords, from the Model A, through the Thunderbird, ending with the Mustang.  A Ford F150 was also on display. 

We finished there about 12:30, boarded the bus, then headed back to camp.  And took the rest of the day off.  Mazie got a haircut, Dave went to the grocery store, and the Brundiges stopped for pizza on the way home, but Joe and I did NOTHING.  I tried to take a nap, but wasn't successful.  Then Joe did take a nap.  And we went out for Mexican for dinner, so we really had a "down" afternoon.

It rained most of last night and up until noon today, but the sun finally came out about 5:00 p.m. and it got pretty warm.  Joe did drive around a little after we ate, and we saw the lake at the edge of Belleville, which is just on the other side of I-94 from us.  We think we are finished here just outside of Detroit, although we didn't see anything except the Ford stuff, but we are moving on tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Greenfield Village (7/8/2015)

Today brought a trip to Henry Ford's Greenfield Village, "Walking through the impressive Greenfield Village is like stepping into a living museum. Three centuries of history are played out before your eyes in an 80-acre (32.3-hectare) model village. There are authentic historic structures and people strolling on the footpath wearing period costume. See Model T cars and horses pull wagons along the street. Started by famed automobile manufacturer Henry Ford, Greenfield Village has over 26 million artifacts and 83 historic buildings that are organized into seven districts."

The village is broken up into sections:  Josephine Ford Plaza, Working Farms, Liberty Craftworks, Henry Ford's Model T, Railroad Junction, Main Street, Edison at Work, Porches & Parlors, and Walnut Grove. At Collins' suggestion, we all boarded the train to get an overview of the park and figure out how to tackle our exploration.  We were the first train riders of the day, so Collins borrowed a rag to wipe the suet off our seats, but we were "sprinkled" with suet throughout the train ride.

It is common to encounter bicycle and unicycle riders, Model T's, horse drawn carriages and Model Ts on the roads as we walked.



We started down Main Street, going in and out of almost every building.  I'll post a few pictures from this area.

Heinz House (of Heinz 57 Varieties)


Joe stylin' at Cohen Millinery



Then we ventured into Edison at Work.



We continued on into Porches & Parlors, where we found our cohorts having lunch.  (of course, we joined them)
We caught one of the shows, "How I Got Over,"" inspiring stories, songs and slavery narratives," which was very entertaining. 


Also in this section was the Farris Windmill, the oldest windmill in the U.S.  This one was transplanted from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.


We caught one family enjoying the lunch they had just cooked on the wood cookstove.  They were having lamb as their meat, soup, salad, several different vegetables, and they had a cake in the oven for later.
We walked through this Cottswold Cottage, an English cottage and garden.

There were homes of several famous people here:  Robert Frost, Noah Webster, Thomas Edison.  We checked out Noah Webster's place.

The two buildings that were slave quarters were made of brick, which was unusual.  They were part of the Hermitage Plantation, near Savannah, Georgia, because brick-making was an important industry on the Hermitage Plantation and they could get the materials at no cost.


Our next stop was outside a school, where Laura Ingalls (from Little House on the Prairie) was telling her story.
Then we went through the Railroad Junction, where we viewed a railroad turntable demonstration and the roundhouse.


Then we worked our way over to the Liberty Craftworks where several different shops had artists or workers plying their trade, all very interesting demonstrations.

Glass Blowing


Weaving Shop

Pottery Shop


Huge kiln outside pottery shop
Print Shop

Tin Shop

This was a pretty amazing place.  The exhibits were authentic in most cases, not replicas, that had been taken apart on site and put back together here in Greenfield Village.  All the buildings (houses and shops) had guides inside to tell you all about the place and answer any questions.  It was done almost to a Disney perfection.  Quite a collection to Mr. Ford had gathered.  I heard one tour person say there were two buildings he thought they still needed.  One was a barber shop but I can't remember the second one.  We didn't see every single building, but we saw most of them. 

It was a lot of walking, and a very chilly day.  I was glad to have my sweater.  We finished up about 3:30-4:00 and headed back to the campground, all worn out.  But we have to rest up, because tomorrow we have more adventures to take on.