Ft. Wayne (7/12/2015)

Today we took a little side trip.  When we realized Battle Creek was only about 100 miles from Ft. Wayne, we decided to go visit Lucille, Jim and Dixie.  Dave elected to stay home and get his laundry done, so the remaining 5 loaded up in our car and down the road we went.  We had misty rain most of the day down I-69, saw a handful of deer out in the fields, and arrived at the Croxtons about 10:30.  Lucky for us, Joe and Cathy had driven up from Bloomington for the weekend so we got to visit with them while we waited for the rest of the family to get home from church.  I always have technical questions for these two experts (camera and computer) so I took advantage of our time with them and dealt with my issues.

Then the church crew arrived, so hugs and kisses were shared by all.

After we visited for a while, we loaded up in 3 vehicles and headed for lunch.  That process took a little while, but we got seated fairly quickly.  Lucille ordered a beautiful chef salad; Joe, Mazie and I got tenderloins, but they weren't the best, and most of the rest ordered breakfast which looked delicious.

After we got back to their house, we walked around the yard and checked out the new rain barrel and Dixie's flower gardening efforts.  Everything was looking lovely.  Then Rick, Lori, and Ara stopped by so we got to visit with them for a while.

Most of the visit was spent on the front porch, although Dixie, Mazie and I moved inside because the mosquitos were after us.  But Lucille spent the afternoon entertaining her devoted friends and family at her favorite spot.

Joe and Cathy's visit was to purchase drum cases, so the guys had to check that out, along with Joe's still-new pickup.

 Just one of Dixie's beautiful flowers.   I don't know why I didn't take pictures all around the house -- just didn't think to do it.l

We loaded up about 4:30 and headed back to Michigan.  Fortunately, the misty rain had finally stopped so it was a pleasant afternoon, and it was fun to visit with everyone and see Mom again.  We stopped at the famous Schuyler Restaurant in Marshall for dinner, which was good but very expensive.  But we finally arrived back at camp about 8:00, glad to be able to get out the car and stretch out.  It was a good day.

Around Battle Creek, MI (7/11/2015)

Today we explored Battle Creek, and even drove over to neighboring town Marshall.  Dave and Mazie accompanied us on our exploration today, and we started with breakfast at Lake's Sunrise Cafe, a little family owned place off the main street, but I had a coupon and an address, so we drove right to it.  After we stuffed ourselves, we headed downtown to the Farmers Market.  It was a fairly small market, but they had local produce.  Joe bought some more cherries, I bought 2 ears of corn and some cookies, and Mazie bought some rhubarb.

Then we headed over to the Kimball House Museum, which was supposed to have a history of Battle Creek, but it was closed.  So we tried to locate the buildings listed on the "Heritage Mile," and we found most of them.  Some were just buildings, and we weren't able to get in any of them, so it was more of a drive-by.  It started with Monument Park, a statue erected to honor cereal magnate C. W. Post.  At one time, Battle Creek was the cereal capital of the U.S.  On the inside of this wall is a 12-foot sculpture of Sojourner Truth.  There's a lot of history about Sojourner Truth,  "an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, in 1828 she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man."

Monuments:

 Sojourner Truth

 This statute was down by the police station, a police officer and a little girl.

Several churches were also listed on the Heritage Mile, and they were huge.

Churches:

We checked off most of the rest of the buildings listed, then drove over to the building that was the sanitariam that Kellogg built here.  It is huge, and after he lost it during the depression, the government took it over and it became a hospital for the Army.  Our friend Arnie (Brenda's dad) served here as a medic in 1952.

But when Dr. Kellogg ran it, it was more like a health spa for the rich and famous, including kings and queens, millionaires, movie stars, and the big names of the day (Edison, Ford).  The building is now called the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center, and we were told that it houses a lot of veterans' records.

We happened upon a little museum still in the building stages, but it was interesting and the two guys running it were very nice.  One of the board members' wife, who has passed away, had a collection of wool ready to be woven, and they intend to get that up and running in the near future.

They have a spinning wheel in here too.  Most of their current collection are items from the Kellogg cereal days.

We left here and drove over to Marshall, to Turkeyville, sort of a gift shop, flea market, and dinner show place, but they happened to have an arts and crafts show today, so we walked through that.  Here are a few of the craft items that caught my eye.

I happened to have an address (and a coupon) for a paper store that also had scrapbook supplies, so we drove down the main street and I checked that out.  Then we came back to Battle Creek and went back out to the Adventist Village to finish that tour.  Dave had missed that yesterday, so we thought he needed to see that.  We listened to the tour guide again, then toured three of the buildings, but it was getting late and we were getting tired, so we didn't stay with that very long.  We did see a home, the school, and a log cabin.  Each building had an Adventist inside to tell a little about the building and how it related to their beliefs.

These are some of the exercise equipment and tools Dr. Kellogg created, which are amazingly similar to things found in work-out gyms today.

 The school.

 Log cabin

Other buildings in the village.

We left here, stopped at the grocery store, and headed back to camp.  After dinner, we played cards for a while.  The weather was perfect here today, probably in the 70s although it did get a little cloudy in the afternoon.  I heard some local say something about summer having arrived, and I thought, boy, could I tell you a thing or two about summer!  But the mosquitoes are bad here at the campground.  We are parked on grass and we have to hustle in and out the door.  I'm afraid we are going to be in mosquito territory for quite some time.

One of the brochures we picked up at the Visitor Center was a geocache challenge of the underground railroad.  If we had time, that would be a fun thing to try to do.  The brochure gives the GPS coordinates, as well as "Difficulty", "Terrain", "Size", and a "Hint".  We haven't done any geocaching for a couple of years, but this sounded intriguing.  I'll keep that in case we ever pass this way again.

Arriving Battle Creek, Michigan (7/10/2015)

We're on the road again this morning.  We didn't intent to have an early start because we have a tour at noon in Chelsea of the Jiffy Mix plant, which was a good thing because Collins had to make a quick trip to Camping World.  As he was hooking his car up to the motorhome, he realized he had lost one of the pins that holds them two pieces together.  Fortunately, Camping World was just down the road so that was a quick trip and we were on the move, right at 10:00 a.m.

We got to Chelsea about 10:45, so we had some time to kill.  Dave and Joe took a little walk up the street (looking for Joe's diet coke), and then we all congregated in the lobby of the plant.  No pictures allowed once the tour began, but I did snap a photo of us in the room where we watched a couple quick videos.  Since we are going into a food processing plant, it's back to the hair coverings, just like the Sweets Candy Factory in Salt Lake City on our Alaska adventure.

We didn't get to see a whole lot.  The only line running today was yellow cake mix, and we got to see boxes go through the line going from a flat cardboard to a box ready to fill, and we saw them filling big bags (Joe thinks 50 lb.) of the yellow cake mix.  But the best part was when we first started the tour and went into the auditorium to watch the two videos, we were given a treat -- today's was brownies, and a drink.  We could order cases (24 boxes) or half cases (12 boxes) for 50 cents per box.  The corn bread mix was even cheaper, $10 for a case, $5 for a half-case.  We could order an assorted box, or a half-case, or case, of one specific flavor.  We put in our order and paid for it before the tour, and they handed it to us as we finished the tour, along with a goodie bag of 2 boxes of their brownie mix, a cookbook, a sticker and a little fluffy thing.  Too bad Ford didn't give us a goody bag of a little ole Ford!

We left there and drove on to Battle Creek.  My mother had worked in some plant here during World War II.  Joe thinks it might have been a parachute plant.  But it's one of those towns I grew up hearing about, so I was glad to get to stop here even though I have no idea what to look for. 

We arrived here at the campground about 3:00, and after we got set up, Joe, Mazie and I drove back into town to find the Visitor Center.  We picked up several brochures, then drove out to the Kellogg Discovery Center/Adventist Village.  We thought it closed at 4:00 but I ran up to the door and it was still open, until 5:00, so we got a quick tour of the Center.  We will have to come back tomorrow to see the outbuildings.  And I forgot to take pictures.  Inside the Center was mostly contraptions Kellogg had invented for exercise for his sanitarium. He and his brother accidentally discovered the cereal flake, after one of his guests at the sanitarium broke her teeth on something he had suggested they eat.  His brother went on to market the cereal.

We we came into town, we drove past a park that had what looked like totem poles in it.  So on the way back, Joe pulled in so we could take pictures.  It was actually an arboretum, and the park was called a Fantasy Forest.  Very cute.

Notice Draw Bridge on this one

  That was a nice little surprise here, and the arboretum looked like it had lots of biking and walking trails.  We didn't go through it, but maybe we will tomorrow.

We got back to camp and threw some dinner together, then had a restful evening.  Tomorrow is supposed to bring nice weather again so we hope we get to see a little of what Battle Creek is about.

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.