Day 5: June 23, 2015
A Day at the Henry Ford

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No group breakfast was planned for the first couple days of the conference and I decided to try the coney island next door rather than eating in the hotel restaurant or driving somewhere. I done good. The food was good, the staff friendly, and the prices great. The pictured meal is $3.69 before 11:00 ($5.19 after) plus $1.69 for the coffee. This will be my breakfast spot tomorrow, too.

Back at the hotel, we boarded buses for the ride to The Henry Ford.

On arrival, I headed straight to Roadside America: Through the Lens of John Margolies. which had just opened on the 20th. It will be here through January 24, 2016. Part of the exhibit contains items, such as vintage travel journals and pennants, that Margolies collected. There is a spot where visitors can relax and lean up against a cactus. A slideshow of Margolies' photos runs continuously on a pair of screens behind the Avanti and New Yorker but the gallery, where Margolies images can be studied up close, is even better.

My airplane picks are a superb replicas of a Wright Flyer and a Ford Tri-Motor.

Picking car photos to post sure isn't easy. My tiny sample consists of the Mustang concept car along with the real thing, a Crosley Hotshot from Cincinnati, an 1899 Duyrea "trap", a Tucker Torpedo, the 1903 Packard that was the second car to cross the United States, and Eisenhower's "bubble" limo.

After something of a whirlwind dash through the museum, I headed to Greenfield Village.

Dayton, Ohio, has a couple replicas of the Wright Brothers' bicycle shop but this is the real thing with the house they grew up in standing beside it. I was a little upset about the banner out front although I eventually realized that I was misunderstanding it. A play depicting the brothers' return from the first successful flight is performed at the house several times each day. Its title is Home from Kitty Hawk. The banner is advertising the play. Seeing the banner on a pole in front of the relocated house, I read it as "Wright Brothers' home from Kitty Hawk" instead of "Wright Brothers Home from Kitty Hawk" and took it as another attempt to steal Ohio's favorite brothers. After a lifetime around Dayton, I'm no doubt a little extra sensitive to that sort of things so can't really judge whether the banner is actually misleading to the general populace.

For whatever reason, this clock tower is one of my most vivid memories from my first visit to Greenfield Village around 1964. The facade and mechanicals are from the Sir John Bennett Jewelry Store in London, England. It's now a sweet shop.

The Eagle Tavern was moved here from Clinton, Michigan, where it served as a stagecoach stop. It has a reputation for good food and recreating a mid-nineteenth century experience. I wasn't ready for a meal but I wanted to check it out. I didn't notice the group of LHA folks on they left when I peeked into the dining area but they jumped out at me when I looked through the pictures at the end of the day. The group included Illinois love birds Wayne and Esther Silvius who are celebrating their sixty-fifth anniversary this week.

When I learned that this was a tavern for real and not just in name, I obtained a beverage and sat with the fellows on the porch for a spell. They have the sort of job to which I aspire.


Model T rides are available and there are also some horse drawn vehicles in the village. Traffic jams can develop. Bicycle riding looks like another pretty good job although it's not one I'm going to pursue at this time.

I saw just a tiny bit of the wide variety of entertainment available in the village. Slave narratives are the basis for How I Got Here, a tremendous two person show that includes some songs and audience interaction. I saw the Greenfield Singers do a Model T Medley and I even watched that Home from Kitty Hawk play.

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