2015 Fall Western Trip: East Lansing

Friday 9/11:

The Henry Ford Museum and Rouge Truck Plant were on our agenda today.  They are located in Dearborn, which is near Detroit and is a 90 minute drive from East Lansing.  We wanted to avoid the morning rush hour traffic, so we waited until 8:30 to leave and arrived at the Henry Ford about 10:00.  We were just in time to find easy parking and short ticket lines.

We decided to visit the truck assembly plant first.  Here Ford F-150 trucks are built.  The plant is a 20 minute shuttle bus ride away from the museum. The assembly line there is jaw dropping experience!  In six hours, a Ford truck is assembled from start to finish.  As it travels around the line, it passes about 250 work stations where specific parts are added.  Keeping the stations supplied with parts and coordinating the coming together of the right colored parts (such as doors, tailgates, etc.) with the matching cabs was amazing.  I could have stood there all day watching.  Unfortunately, taking pictures of the assembly line was strictly forbidden and enforced.  Oh well.  I did found this youtube video that shows many of the stations we saw.

The museum complex is huge.  Almost too huge.  It is overwhelming.  After about two hours we reached a saturation point.  The museum is divided into collections by theme, such as agriculture, flight, culture and such.  Among the more attention gathering items were Kennedy's limo from Dallas, Lincoln's rocking chair from Ford's Theater, George Washington's camp bed, Lindberg's camping trailer, America's oldest school bus and a Ford Mustang with the serial number 1.

The Henry Ford is actually a non profit organization that is made up of several entities, including Henry Ford Museum, an IMAX Theater, Greenfield Village, Rouge Factory Tour, and The Benson Research Center.  We did not have time, or the energy to see an IMAX movie or Greenfield Village, which is a day long experience in itself.  That's for next time.

We left Dearborn about 2:00 to avoid the Friday rush hour traffic, which we were partially successful in.  We were back in East Lansing by 4:00, just in time for a nap.  :-)

Saturday, 9/12:

Farmer's Market, wine tasting, and Michigan State football were today's activities.  The day started with a visit to the East Lansing Farmer's Market.  Now this is a real Farmer's Market with well over 50 vendors offering everything from fish, to produce, to flowers, to coffee and donuts.

Later we hit the road for wine tasting.  Eric had selected three stops for us.  The first was J. Trees Winery.  This one seemed to specialize in sparkling wines and hard ciders.  Next up was Flying Otter Winery.  This winery was the hardest to find, with a dirt dirt road and long hidden driveway, but it turned out to be our favorite.  Last on the list was Sandhill Crane Vineyard and Winery.  This was by far the largest and most commercial one we saw.  They had a restaurant and a live band was playing.  We ordered a late lunch and the tastings took place right at your table as you snacked.  We ended up buying a few bottles from each of the three stops.

We ended the day watching on TV the first half of the MSU football game with Oregon.  Both teams were ranked in the top ten and it was a big game.  The tailgating on campus started about noon, for an 8:00 PM game.  With a sell out crowd of 76,000, the campus was a zoo.  We drove through the campus about 6:00, and I have never seen so many people (and trash) partying at once.  You can argue whether big time college football players are student athletes or not, but there is no doubt that big time college football is an economic engine to the area.  By the way, MSU won 31 to 28.

Tomorrow we leave East Lansing and head to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.