Ford's Greenfield Village

The village is 90 acres that include 7 historic districts and buildings of historic significance. Vintage transportation, skilled artisans and costumed presenters can be seen. We only saw about half of before we ran out of steam.

We departed Michigan Wednesday morning and in the afternoon found a camping spot at Deep Creek Lake in Maryland. We then called our WV mountain friends, Pat and Howard, and had a nice dinner and conversation overlooking the lake.

Arrived home yesterday. Will give the blog a rest till our next trip to Florida in January.


Henry Fords childhood home


Street scene with horse carriages and model T's touring visitors


Where the Ford cars got their start


Last car of the Model T production.


Church Henry built for his mother


Live coal burning steam train that take visitors around the village


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The Henry Ford Museum

The Museum is located in Dearborn, MI. It is magnificent and too much to describe here. You could easily spend more than a full day here, we cut it short to a half day in order to visit Fords Greenfield Village the other half.

The museum covers cars, presidential limos including Kennedy's in which he was assassinated, airplanes, racers, trains, campers, machinery from the Ford Model T factory, power plants, bus Rosa Parks Rode in Montgomery, AL., furniture and more.


The cars all looked new, displayed from the 1800's to the 1950's. This is a Tucker, it was supposed to be revolutionary, however they went broke after production in the teens.





Monster steam engine, one of about 6 in the Muesum


Ford Tri Motor aircraft, Ford also developed a small recreational aircraft, the test pilot was killed in the prototype and Ford dropped the effort.


The first V8 powered car





Each day at the museum the visitors assemble a Ford Model T. It is completed in the afternoon, then you can sit behind the wheel and have your picture taken.



I was one of the early assemblers but left before it was completed, too bad no pic.




Early steam engine generator




We departed in an Overland.

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Pasties and the UP

I always thought pasties were little breast coverups that strippers wore, not that I ever saw one. While we traveled across the Upper Peninsula of MI we kept seeing these signs for pasties, different favors were being advertised? Finally curiosity forced us to stop. This seems to a UP thing as we never saw it advertised except here. Anyway we stopped at restaurant and ordered one for lunch, it looks like a fried pie but the one we had had potatoes, carrots and they said ground meat, couldn't find any ground meat in it, must have been ground pretty fine. Mine was served with gravy, not bad but will probably not order another, even if I go back to the UP.
From the UP we crossed the Mackinaw bridge into the lower portion of MI. The first 100 miles going south was mostly forest and sparsely populated, very little traffic. Further on as the population and traffic increased it was strange to notice the lack of foreign cars. The folks here are very loyal to the Detroit built domestic cars. My great nephew Scott who we visited here works for Toyota and he said their share of the market in MI is much lower than the national average.








I ate all mine but Nita stopped here.




10 bucks to cross the Mackinaw bridge




Ever see a 42 wheeler? Saw many of them.




A real treat to be invited for dinner and visit with my great nephew Scott and his wife Augul and children Tristan and Briana.
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Fly in Madeline Island

We left Duluth yesterday morning and followed the Wisconsin Lake Superior shoreline around to Bayfield. Offshore from there are the Apostle Islands, the biggest Island is Madeline Island and it is about 10 miles long. We put our MH on the ferry and in about 20 minutes we off loaded onto Madeline. There are permanent residents there and lots of tourists in the summer to enjoy the beaches, trails and parks. It's kind of isolated with no cell phone service and tv, not a lot of tourists at this time.

We did a little walking on the beach, whipped up our dinner in about 5 minutes, salad and smoked whitefish. Following dinner we had a mean game of Mexican Train dominos, the last hand I ended with about 200 points and lost. During all this excitement we left the screen door open. This time of year the flies seem to be seeking a warmer environment, so we ended up with lots of flys. Our next game was to see who could swat the most flies, turned out to be a tie, unfortunately there were some left over. As we traveled into Michigan today we kept opening the windows to let some out, wonder what they thought about being in a different state and if they were accepted by the Michigan flies?

As we traveled eastward across the Upper peninsula of Michigan today there was just the start of fall color in some trees. We have stopped in Marquette for the night.



A view of Bayfield from the ferry.


Arriving at Madeline Island.




Nice beach, a little cool for swimming

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Moving on

Thursday morning after the donut breakfast and farewells we departed for Duluth. Spent the night in downtown Duluth at the Marina where they have rv parking. Walked around the harbor area and watched the big lake freighters come in.




Typical freight is iron ore, coal, grain, etc. This one about a 1000 foot long.




This is a smaller ship than above, they pass under this bridge from Lake Superior into the Duluth harbor. The road is elevated to allow passage, it lowers after they pass through. The marina we stayed at is on the left side of the bridge, as we drove in from the right we were stopped for about 15 minutes for the top boat to pass. Leisurely got out of the rv to take the pictures.




Our friends Lynn and Claudia who organized the fun rally at Grand Marais. Now these folks really travel, they traded in their 2006 View last year with 200,000 miles on it and already have 50K on the new one. We met them in 2008 and usually meet up somewhere every year.




Larry and Virginia attended the rally and generously make these wind turbines for some of the lucky attendees, Nita got one and is demonstrating it at the windy Duluth marina. They are a work of art made from aluminum cans.
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The Grand Marais rally

It doesn't take much to get rv people on the road, mention a rally and off they go. We thought we might have traveled the longest distance, however there were several from Washington and Oregon and one gal all the way from Fairbanks, Alaska. A total of 52 like motorhomes and about 100 folks. Lynn and Claudia were the generous organizers of this rally with the help of many volunteers. A large recreation building is dedicated for the group where pancake breakfasts, wine sharing, soup suppers, pizza parties, tech sessions, etc. are presented by our volunteers. It's been a fun rally and will end this morning after donuts from the Worlds Best Donuts.



The pancake breakfast crew.


Wine sharing and soup supper


This little squirrel is getting seeds or nuts out of cone. He was about 3 feet from our dinette window.


Folks bring all kinds of alternative transportation, cars, scooters, bicycles, scooters. This member has a Segway and the little dog between his legs loves the ride.


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Wandering around Grand Marais before the rally

GM is a very popular town, it has a protected harbor from the lake for a marina, fishing, hiking trails, climbing, winter snowmobiling, etc.


A little treacherous walk out to the harbor light house


Easter Island or just some kids handy work?



Well, just had to make sure they weren't lying, had to eat 3 too make sure, think they're right.


Ran across several painters around town, tried to strike up a conversation with this gal, she was either deaf, didn't speak English or didn't like me and didn't respond. One of my personality flaws I guess.



These folks had just harvested the wild rice and were heating it to dry so the husk could be removed, then they will winnow it. I hesitated to tell them the local grocery had it for less than a dollar a box(maybe I learned something from my encounter with the artist above). Note the nice birch bark baskets in upper right corner.


The beach here is flat red rocks. Flew my stunt kite here and unlike a soft sandy beach the crashes here did damage to the kite, have some repair work to do.


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Duluth and the north shore of Lake Superior

About 40 miles north of Minneapolis the population and traffic diminishes, makes for more relaxed traveling. Duluth is the start of the lakes north shore, it's another 110 miles to Grand Marais. We stopped at the Duluth info office and got some good tips on where to stop for pies and smoked lake fish.


Duluth and looking north.


Lunch, smoked whitefish and lake trout, may not look great but it was. At another stop we got a pie with cherries, rhubarb, strawberries, peaches and a few other unidentified fruits, wow good, unfortunately gone before we could take a photo. Maybe on the way back we can get another one.

About this time we were getting a little road weary so we pushed on and arrived in Grand Marais a day early.


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Destination Grand Marais, Minnesota

Why would anyone drive 1400 miles to a rally of folks we met with in Asheville, NC several months ago, I don't know, but we are. Grand Marais, pronounced gran ma ray is the name given by French fur traders, meaning great marsh due a marsh just above the harbor.


What's this? At the first rest stop we discovered the full roll of paper towels unwound with the vibration of traveling. Forgot to put a rubber band around the roll.


We left home Tuesday after Labor Day and arrived in Forest City, Iowa Thursday afternoon. This the home of Winnebago, the oldest and largest manufacturer of motorhomes. This was where our MH was built and our mission was to take a factory tour the next morning. They have a huge facility and have special buildings where they make the upholstery, cabinets, metal extrusions, just about everything in the MH except the chassis and appliances. The moving assembly lines were amazing with a mixture of different models traveling down the same line, all MH are built to a firm order, none for inventory. Even Nita enjoyed the tour, unfortunately photos weren't allowed.

We departed Forest City after lunch and crunched through a lot of road construction and busy Minneapolis.

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