Saturday was a travel day from Holland 200 miles east across Michigan to Monroe, about 30 miles south of Detroit and Dearborn. We arrived at our RV park, Sterling State Park on the shores of Lake Erie, in the afternoon after stopping for diesel and a few groceries en route. Having sat all day, we set out on our bicycles on the paved trail that winds through the large state park which is sandwiched between a large coal burning power plant and two 
giant cooling towers that appear to be part of another power plant. It was quite windy and white caps adorned Lake Erie.
We came to this area to visit The Henry Ford, the collective term for the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, and the Ford Rouge Factory Tour. It was highly recommended to us and was compared to the Smithsonian. Having spent Sunday at the Henry Ford Museum, we concur with that statement. There is an amazing assortment of cars, 
trains, airplanes, industrial machines, agricultural equipment, furniture, and much more. George enjoyed seeing Henry Ford’s private railcar, the Fair Lane (the same name as his home), which he used from 1921 – 1941. Ford came to Rome in his private car to visit Berry College and made a donation which funded Berry’s Ford Buildings, originally a girls dorm, dining hall, and classrooms. George was also impressed with the very extensive collection of antique steam engines, some of which were huge, that were housed in the 
museum. George commented that this must be the largest collection of steam engines in the world. We also saw a number of early R.V.’s including the one that Charles Karault used for his “On the Road” TV segments.
Tuesday morning we toured the Ford Rouge Factory. The original Rouge complex was a mile-and-a-half wide and more than a mile long. Henry Ford attracted employees by offering $5 a day pay, twice the going rate. At its peak in the 1930s, more than 100,000 people worked at the Rouge. One new car rolled off the line every 49 seconds.
The Rouge, which now makes F-150 pickup trucks, 
was rebuilt in 1980 to be a “green” factory and has a roof planted with15 types of sedum which helps cool the building, protects the roof, and uses water that would otherwise be run-off. The plants also clean the air by using carbon dioxide and provide a habitat for birds. Seeing the assembly line at work was the most amazing part of the tour. It demonstrated the level of refinement and technological advancement of Henry Ford’s basic idea of mechanizing the assembly of automobiles. It not only has evolved to a more efficient system of assembling cars, but provides safer and healthier conditions for the workers.
Our next destination was Greenfield Village which Ford began during his lifetime by collecting important historical buildings and artifacts to record the “sights, sounds, and sensations of the American experience.” It’s similar to Williamsburg, VA, in that it seeks to 
recreate a time of the past. In Ford’s Bagley Avenue Workshop, an early pre-assembly line plant, we enjoyed talking with the host who had worked for Nissan in Tennessee. He was quite knowledgeable about Henry Ford. He showed photos of several autos Henry Ford designed, but the businesses behind them failed for various reasons. Some of his partners wanted to build an expensive car, but Ford wanted a car that was reliable and inexpensive that people could afford. His Model T was that car and the rest is history.
Now we’re leaving behind the Great Lakes region that was the focus of our trip. We’ve seen how the economy of this region revolves around the iron ore mines of the Iron Range of Minnesota west of Lake Superior, railroads that haul the ore to processing plants where it’s made into taconite pellets, the
Happy first day of fall to all! We’ve seen a few early signs of fall in Michigan, including the maple tree in the adjacent photograph which we shot on September 14 at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
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