The Henry Ford Museum was our next touristy-stop. We had tickets for the 12:00 pm Ford Rouge tour … I’d bought them online earlier in the week, so we were all set. Of course, we didn’t start off our day this way …
We first had breakfast in the hotel!
This time, it was a hot breakfast. No waffles, but eggs, sausage (can you see Joseph in seventh heaven??) yogurt again, fresh fruit salad, cereal … everything! Yummy! Oh … and biscuits. Joseph and I made Sausage and Egg biscuits and the girls stuck to yogurt, biscuits with jelly and fruit.
We got to the Henry Ford Museum, parked and read through the printout I had about where to pick up our tickes. Online I’d remembered it said “The Will Call Window” but there was nothing to indicate where that was. So, we walked all the way to the ticket windows and they sent us all the way BACK to where we started. 🙄
We waited for the big blue buses and climbed “all aboard!” to be transported to the Rouge.
The Rouge is Ford’s F150 factory. The tour started with a historical movie about Henry Ford (fascinating) then a virtual reality film about the making of a car (even more fascinating, but a bit scary to the munchkins) and then a climb to the 8th floor to see everything from an observation deck … superbly fascinating and then down to tour the floor of the factory.
While on the observation deck, we learned why Ford has grass on its roof, vines climbing up the sides of the buildings, “sunroofs” on the building’s roof and that the pavement of the parking lot is porous. It was so neat to read about all the conservation measures the company is implementing.
In any case, after a quick snack, we took our self guided tour of the factory. Now, when I say factory, I MEAN factory. The Rouge is setup so that tourist can see the factory AT WORK. You are asked not to wave to, talk to, yell to, or otherwise interrupt the workers. It was so neat to see all the pieces of the puzzle of an F150 come together. Emi would start yelling to me to stop so she could see. 😀
We saw windshields being placed, doors being added, the stickers on the outside being added, cabs and beds being merged, trim being placed and other pieces too. It took us over 45 minutes to walk the factory floor and it was SO cool. SO cool. 🙂
We didn’t get to go into the Henry Ford Museum … just didn’t have time, but Ron and I would both LOVE to go sometime. Perhaps we’ll just fly up for a weekend. 😉