The Henry Ford

For the second day of our 2nd annual Fathers Day Trip we traveled up to Dearborn Michigan to visit

The Henry Ford.

The Henry Ford is the largest and outdoor history museum in the nation!!  There are three parts to see when visiting The Henry Ford - 1. the museum 2. Greenfield Village 3. Ford Rouge Factory Tour.  When planning your visit, the general consensus says to allow at least a day and a half time at each attraction.  And they aren't kidding!!  We were there for only one day and spent maybe 3 hours in the museum and if we saw a quarter of it, we'd be lucky.

Although its named after its founder, Henry Ford, that does not mean that the entire museum is nothing but cars.   Oddly enough that is mostly what I took pictures of. 

Just one of many fancy fireplaces the rich folks used long, long ago.

Its kind of hard to see but this is a round house built entirely out of aluminum called a Dymaxion House

Forget TV/DVD player combos - bring back the TV/radio set.

A band saw and a sander.

A planer

The, yes THE, actual Rosa Parks bus.

She sat here in the second seat.

Once on the bus they start up an audio recording of Rosa Parks talking about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. For someone like me who didn't live in this era its hard to fathom what African Americans were put through just because of the color of their skin. I couldn't help but be overwhelmed, practically to tears, to see her seat and to hear her voice, to almost be reliving the event in the bus that it happened in. History brought to life, its what my dad loved.

The seat that President Abraham Lincoln was shot in.

The car JFK was assassinated in.

I believe this was President Taft's stagecoach.

The largest steam locomotive in the world.  Never did I expect to see an entire train inside the museum.  I told you this place was huge.

I don't remember which plane this is, there was three full sized, real life planes inside the museum.

Just looking back through these pictures leaves me with a great desire to go back again, but this time without little Miss Bree to keep track of.  If you haven't been to The Henry Ford, I highly recommend it.  Not only is the museum alone worth it but they have special attractions throughout the year.  Right now its the Civil War but due to having Bree with us we weren't able to look at anything.  This spring the Titanic exhibit is coming and I will be going back.