Motown and THE Henry Ford

We started the day to the sad news of the Orlando shooting at a nightclub. We were only in Orlando two weeks ago. This is another tragedy to push for tighter gun control - I can hear Trump now saying guns are fine and Hillary being anti-gun. What a dreadful tragedy. With that said, our day was lovely despite the constant news of the shooting.

We don't have a fridge in our room (more to follow on this), so we can't keep milk to eat cereal. So we went downstairs but the restaurant had no buffet brekky, only an expensive breakfast menu. So we wandered across the road to another hotel (name withheld to protect the innocent). We went to the brekky area which had a simple buffet style - I asked the waitress if we could sit down and that we were not from this hotel. I said I could pay cash obviously. She seemed like this was not supposed to happen but she looked at me with the most sympathetic lovely smile as if I was eating in her own home, and she said it's no problem, you can eat here, we'll just pretend you stayin' here. So we had a continental brekky which was good. When finished I asked the lady how much do I owe her and she said 'whatever you like'...so I offered her $25 and she was totally happy. I thanked her and gave her a little shoulder hug - she was so lovely.

We then visited the Motown Museum. OMG - this was fabulous. I love music and I really love the music of that era. Photos were not allowed but we took the 1 hour tour and it covered all the memorabilia and history inside. The museum is the actual house where Berry Gordy started the company. He initially called it Tamla but changed it to Motown after 'Motor Town' Detroit. Gordy bought about 5 houses next door as the company expanded. What I really enjoyed was that the house was authentic - the actual rooms, furniture, music items - even the candy and cigarette machine. It was nice to stand in the very studio room that many stars cut their record songs. Some of the great sounds of Motown include Diana Ross, Smoky Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, The Jacksons, The Four Tops and The Supremes. I totally enjoyed the experience.

We spent the afternoon at The Henry Ford museum. This is NOT only a Ford car museum. It is a massive museum founded by Henry Ford with artefacts of American history, the industrial revolution and innovation including Presidents cars, civil rights artefacts, civil war history, aviation things and American innovation.

 

• JFK's presidential car - the car he was riding the day he was assassinated...very eerie.
• One of 200 copies of the US Constitution that were issued back when it was signed.
• The bus that Rosa Parks rode when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. I sat on the seat she did. The bus was found sitting on a farm used as storage. The chairs were mostly removed but Ford bid very competitively for the bus (for $492,000) and restored it. The pre-restoration pics on the internet are surprising to see given we saw the restored bus today.
• Roosevelt's, Reagan and Eisenhower's Presidential cars
• Many models of luxury, sport, classic and racing cars and trains.
• Lincoln's chair that he was sitting on in the theatre when he was assassinated.

 

The Ford Museum includes a tour of the Ford Factory but it was closed today - bugger. It also includes Greenfield Village which is an outdoor living section of the The Henry Ford complex. Nearly one hundred historical buildings were moved to the property from their original locations and arranged in a "village" setting. The museum's intent is to show how Americans lived and worked since the founding of the country. The Village includes buildings from the 17th century to the present, many of which are staffed by costumed interpreters who conduct period tasks like farming, sewing and cooking. 

Note that these buildings are again original and moved to this site.

Some of the classic things we saw were:

• Wright Brothers bicycle shop and workshop where they built the pieces of the Wright Flyer.
• Thomas Edison's laboratory and workshop
• Model T Ford Workshop

There is a steam loco train that gives rides through the village, Model T cars drive people on short rides and horse/cart and little trucks carry people around. There were older shops, villages, craftshops, stores and farms. It was huge and you need much more than half a day. I was so excited about getting a ride on a Model T. Our driver was friendly and had actually lived in Australia for a few years. I said that he sounded and reminded me of Jack Nicholson (the actor) - he was very flattered. I was worried he was going to yell back at me 'YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH !!". He was excellent and showed me how the gears/pedals worked - very interesting.

 

Now back to the milk situation in our room....we have a mini-bar in the room but the door is locked with a key. I asked the reception for the key so I could keep milk in the fridge. They said that fridge doesn't keep stuff very cold but they would bring a fridge to my room - To My Room? Sure enough, 10 minutes later, a girl wheels a trolley into the room with this little bar fridge. And all this for a bottle of milk. I guess that's good service.


We have a late flight home tomorrow so have a few places we still want to see before we fly out. We're both pretty tired from two big days of walking around but it's been fabulous to see Detroit. Below are a few more pics from the Museum = Wright Bros cycle shop and plane building workshop and, the museum car area.