11 years ago today, Day 24

First things first.  It was email time again, so after I drove into the suburbs of Detroit that morning, I went in search of a library.  I must have been in a rather swanky part of town, because the library was bright-new and so was the technology available to me.  I was anticipating meetings with a couple of friends in Cincinnati that weekend, and was gratified to receive phone numbers from them this go round, because among the few stupid things I did just before I left home was to accidentally pack my address book in with the stuff that the movers put into storage.  So if I hadn't had the email thing set up properly before I left, I'd have been in a world of hurt.

Anyway, after email I went in search of a motel even though it wasn't quite noon yet, because I desperately wanted a shower before I did anything else.  Motel found and shower taken, I headed to Dearborn and another item on my list of "places I've always wanted to visit," which was the Henry Ford Museum. 

I walked my feet off in that museum that afternoon.  As I wrote in my journal, "It's quite spectacular.  Basically an homage to the industrial revolution in general and the internal combustion engine in particular.  I've never seen so many vintage cars in my life.  Not to mention famous airplanes and other modes of conveyance.  The best part, though, was the exhibits about the way they make things you take for granted.  Like light bulbs.  The machine that makes light bulbs simply flabbergasted me.  I guess I'd always thought that they sprang full-blown from the head of Zeus."

Then there was the cute little mockup of an auto camp that looked like it was straight out of the movie It Happened One Night, and several Rube Goldberg-type mechanical exhibits, and, well, I never did make it to Greenfield Village that afternoon, which is the outdoor half of this enormous museum complex.

Fortunately, my ticket was good for two days.  I hit the grocery store (the first time I'd been to a Kroger supermarket since I'd left Ohio six years before) and went back to the motel to rest my feet for the evening before I headed back for more the next day.