Day 2 - The Henry Ford Museum

We spent a good part of our day at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. They have a huge building with all kinds of exhibits, from trains, to planes, to cars of all kinds, furnishings, farm equipment...you name it. Here are some shots:

Here I am standing next to a huge 4-6-6-4 steam locomotive of the type that was used to pull troop trains during WWII. My father-in-law may well have ridden behind this train on his way to the East Coast and off to Europe. The locomotive has six drive wheels on each side, and as you can see from the photo, each drive wheel is nearly 6 feet tall. It's a massive machine.

They had a bunch of cars related to racing, including this Ford which was the Official Pace Car of the 1953 Indianapolis 500.

This Thunderbird was qualified by Bill Elliott at Talledegah in 1987 at 212 mph. That was the last year they ran there without restrictor plates. That record will never be broken by a Cup car.

One of the more interesting collections for me was of presidential transportation. This is the 1902 Brougham buggy that was used by Theodore Roosevelt.
Here's the 1939 Lincoln "Sunshine Special" used by FDR.
This 1950 Lincoln bubble-top was used by President Eisenhower.
This is probably the most notorious car in the collection - the 1961 Lincoln that was driving President John F. Kennedy in 1963 when he was assassinated in Dallas, TX. I've been to Dealy Plaza in Dallas where the shooting took place, and I had the same eerie feeling as I looked into the back seat of this car.
This 1972 Lincoln was last used by President Reagan. That's the last presidential car in their collection because after this one was retired the White House started buying Cadillacs.
Speaking of places that were bad for presidents, they also have this rocking chair in their collection. This is the chair Abraham Lincoln was sitting in at Ford's Theater when he was shot in 1865.
I got a shot of a big hot dog outside the Weinermobile Cafe.
I found this board kind of interesting. In their Liberty and Freedom exhibit they had several questions like this on which people could jot their own answers and affix them to the board. Answers ran the gamut from "liberals", to "The Patriot Act" to "greedy politicians" to "socialism". I was going to write "Obama and the Democrats" but my wife pulled me away.
It's a great place to visit. Plan on walking a whole bunch.

After the Museum we had to make a run back to the airport to swap our rental car for another. When I got in the car at the hotel this morning I noticed a quarter-sized chunk of rubber missing from the left front tire with the cord showing underneath. The last thing I wanted was a flat tire in a rough part of town. After minimal hassle we had a new car and were on our way.

In the evening we hit the Great Lakes Crossing Mall in Auburn Hills, the state's first covered mall and a really huge place full of outlet stores (and a Bass Pro Shops!). We ate dinner there and walked a bunch more.

Tomorrow we'll be spending time with the family during the day and will be attending the wedding rehearsal and dinner in the evening.