Dearborn, MI - One Piece At a Time

What’s the song on your car trip through life? There are an insanely huge number of songs about cruising down the highway in a cool car that it’s difficult to find just one. Are you with Dinah Shore seeing the USA in your Chevrolet? Or are you with Lucille in her Merry Oldsmobile? Maybe you’re with Janis asking the Lord for a Mercedes Benz or with riding with Wilson Pickett and ‘Mustang Sally’. Chuck Berry has ‘No Particular Place to Go’ but gets hung up on that old safety belt. Poor Johnny Cash is building his dream car ‘One Piece at a Time’ as he puts car parts into his lunch bucket when he leaves the factory. He’s figuring that he’ll have it all built by the time he retires. So many songs, so few minutes.

Are you listening on your 8-track, or your cassette player or on a CD? Nope, maybe on your Sirius like Gary and I.

Well, we had a chance to hear them all when we went to the Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI, just to the southwest of Detroit. Here is not only a large Ford Factory, an intricate test track with steep hills, tight turns and long straightaways, but also one of the largest museums in the US. And, it’s not just all cars, although that was the largest section. They’ve got a section on Presidential Cars (well, that is cars but a special category), a section on freedom in America, furniture, trains a coll section on the last 5 generations and the technology that accompanied them.

We wanted to see the museum and knew it was large enough to spend 2 days at it. However, there are 3 options: the Museum, the factory tour and the Greenville Village. Their deal was to get one option and the second was half-price. Well, we wanted to see the Museum and our second option was: the Museum. Nope, can’t do. We were resigned to get a one-day ticket to the Museum and hurry through it but we did tell the young woman at the ticket counter that others might want to do this also and they should make it an option. Voila - she sold us a Museum ticket for tomorrow and let us in today on her say so. Thank you!!

We started with the Presidential cars of which they had 5 beginning with Teddy Roosevelt and ending with Ronald Reagan. All different, depending upon the year made. They had the car President Kennedy was in when he was shot.

FDR’s car - you can almost see him leaning out an waving to the crowds.

Then I noticed this on the little sign for one of the cars. Looks like someone doesn’t like Lyndon Johnson and thinks they can deface museum property to show this. And, lest you think this happened naturally, I checked the same sign on the other side and, sure enough, Johnson’s name was partially scratched off. This front sign was much more public and too many people were watching so it didn’t get defaced as much as the other side, the back side. Imagine hating so much that you think you can deface museum property.

Then they get into the history of cars with some of the very earliest. Here’s one of the first - driven by a small steam engine on the back in 1865. It was really a small steam carriage and was merely driven around a track for people to see - it never made it to the roads.

But, Ford then had a small little thing in 1896 called the Ford Quadricycle or ‘Runabout.’ This car is one of the few surviving early experimental vehicles. Ford was only one of dozens of Americans and Europeans in the 1890’s who were trying to build a carriage that needed no horses. Some used steam, some used electricity but Ford chose an internal combustion gas burning engine. Several experimental cars and two failed companies later, he finally succeeded in 1903 with the Ford Motor Co. The Museum takes great pains to say that Ford invented THIS car, not THE car.

You might think that in a Ford Museum, they might spotlight Fords and leave out the other brands. Not here, they are an equal opportunity showroom. Chevy’s, Chrysler’s, they all get billing. Not only that, but they keep their showcases up to date. They have several things about Zip Cars and other recent automotive changes.

I especially like this one - the 1903 Packard Model F Runabout. It was the 2nd car to make it all the way across the US from San Francisco to New York on the roads they had at the time. Carrying 2 men, the journey took 61 days. ‘I do not care to make this trip again’ said one of them after they arrived on the East Coast.

The first section shows all the early cars, this section shows later cars - the 40’s - 70’s.

Here’s one of the first school buses.

I was especially excited to see this little model - it’s the first car my family had a 1949 Chevy in dark blue and grey with the cool fast back design.

They also had a cool section of early campers - RV’s.

And, of course, the classic VW Bus.

Lunchtime found us in the Lamy Diner right inside the museum.

Let’s see, what tune should we play with lunch?

Now, we’re talking. Let’s take off in this cool Model T. Does Big Gar think I’m his Chauffeur?

As were were touring our last exhibit for the day, a lady strolled up to Gary and asked if he was related to a woman who wrote an RV travel blog. Sure enough, Gary called me into the room and she told me that she read my blog. Whoo-eee. How much fun was that - to meet someone who actually read my blog. (Now, I know personally others who read it but they are friends and relatives - this was a stranger.) Cool.

Guess what we talked about? Full-time RV’ing. They sold their home in June and just started full-timing while we have been doing it for 2+ years now. We talked about RV’s, campsites, places to visit. All the things that other RV’ers talk about when they get together.
It’s 5:15 and it’s time to be getting out of here - to get ready for our trip back tomorrow.