Monday 20th September - Greenfield Village and The Henry Ford Museum

After a breakfast of some yummy fruit and yoghurt and a great night sleep, I met Isabella before she went to playschool.  

We drove around Detroit and this is a BIG industrial city.  All the “mile” roads coming out of downtown, including 8 Mile where Eminem came from.  These are massive highways dissecting “sub-divisions”/housing estates of once grand looking houses, now deserted. These are the run down suburbs that were deserted by the white middle class after the race riots and collapse of the motor industry and are now the dilapidated deprived areas of the city.  We saw the big Ford Motor Company Headquarters. 

Stephen took us to Dearborn, the village where the Ford Car company started and still is.  We spent most of the day  at Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Musuems.  The first was an entire village of Henry Fords favourite buildings that he had  dismantled and moved from their original location to his musuem, where he rebuilt them!  It’s laid out like an old American town, with the house Henry Ford grew up in, and the laboratories where Thomas Edison came up with many of his inventions.  

The Henry Ford Museum was filled with old cars from the first ones to the present day.  My faves were the cars from the 1950s.  They also had an exhibition on the history of Civil Rights in the US, including the bus on which Rosa Parks made her protest.  I sat in the seat where she sat.

At lunch, Joe and Stephen had pulled pork sandwich in the cafe and we all had refills on the fizzy drinks.  This really happens!

For tea we had thai take-away, which meant we had food in those little square boxes you see on American TV programmes and films!  After tea, Galina took us shopping at Kohl’s, a big value department store.  OMG, we had bargains galore on jeans, hoodies and trainers.  I got a pair of Vans for about £12.  

In the area where Stephen and Galina live, there are no footpaths, car is king.  There is no town centre, just retail parks at various points along the highway, including the post office, doctors, daycare, banks.  All the houses are detached and set in their own area of grass, no fences or walls marking the boundaries.  The vehicles are very big.  Most people have 4x4-type cars.