Thursday May 25, 2023 - Battle Creek MI to Henry Ford Museum to Dover OH

Well the heater stopped working last night so it got a little cool. The overnight in the restaurant parking lot was fine. Nobody bothered us, a little light from the street lamps but the Harvest Host thing works great. 

Today we go to Detroit and visit the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation. We heard about it from someone early in our trip. It was 1.5 hours up there and they open at 9:30, so a leisurely morning. The traffic is a little stressful because there are so many people up here all coming and going on top of the fact that the roads were all being worked on, so lots of rough road with no shoulders and traffic cones all over. Very stressful for us country bumpkins.

We got there and discovered that a lot of schools have class trips here so there was a line of cars and school busses waiting to park. They ran out of parking so we ended up stuffing the van a ways away on the grass beside the road. It was actually nice to walk since we did none the day before.

There are three parts to this place. The Museum of Innovation itself, Greenfield Village (an outdoor town) and the factory tour. We opted for just the museum. Fortunately most of the kids were going to Greenfield Village so the museum was not too crazy busy. It’s a huge walk around museum so no waiting in line anywhere.

The theme of course is automobiles, but they also pushed the last 150 years of innovations that contributed to all the stuff we have around us. We forget that cloth used to be made by hand and that machines were not mass produced with interchangeable parts.  It was a great shout out to all those nerds coming in to work everyday with some new idea.

There was also a nice balance of things to see for the non-nerds. They had an exhibit about Julia Child and her life story. A lot about how women and minorities were really limited by old racial and sexist barriers of 100 years ago. There were also several exhibits that were nostalgic (think VW microbus campers, 8 tracks, rotary phones). A lot of this “old stuff” hits pretty close to home when you are in your 60’s!

We left the museum, walked back to the van, and called Dave & Matt Vans about the heater not working. They called right back and we solved the problem by cycling the power on the heater. It all works again. I guess this is not an unusual issue with Wabasto heaters and next time I know what to do. Great customer support!!

Tonight we are “camping” in a Cabela’s parking lot which they allow. We walked next door and got some groceries and then bed.

 odo = 9934