Thursday Was A Beautiful Day At The Henry Ford Museum

My cousin Matt had a brief stop over in Detroit in between flights so I had a few hours to get together with him and show him around.

I decided to take him to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, as it is a true gem, and relatively close to the airport. That way I could be sure to get him there and back in time for his flight.

The Henry Ford Museum is quite huge with all sorts of technological and historical exhibits, focusing on, as expected, a fine collection of automobiles.

There's cars from the early days:

There's even a racing car made out of a World War Two fighter's fuel drop tank.

There's a vertiable catalog of Ford's triumphs through the years, including this race wining 2011 Ford Fusion:

And there are Ford's failures like the Edsel.

 Not only the car, but the marketing campaign for it wasn't quite on target:

The Museum even has (gasp) Japanese cars:

But it has much more than cars.

Aircraft, including Ford's Flivver are on display.

 Technology through the ages was showcased. Here's an old but still working electric generator  among the display of steam engines and generators that is still powering light bulbs around the display:

One display had some items exhibited during various World's Fairs, including some that are somewhat creepy in a futuristic welcome-your-robot-overlords kind of way:

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto....

 And they had another technological masterpiece on display: Firearms.

Here's the Smith and Wesson Revolver Display. Tam can probably point at the display and go: "Got it, got it, need it, got it..."

Close ups of a S&W .45 Schofield and a Model 2  The light in and around the cabinet was quite poor so that's the best I was able to get:

 

 There was also a display of Colt revolvers, and there were rifles from flinlocks to lever actions. and black powder to almost modern shotguns.

 Knives were also on display, including this most peculiar piece:

Dagnabbit Lester, I told you not to bring a knife to a gunfight........

Seeing a few Mustangs on display, I took some pictures for Keads to enjoy:

The Mustangs included one that I'm pretty sure is not in his collection, a 1962 Mustang I Roadster:

And of course, you can't visit the Henry Ford without taking a picture of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile:

If I Drove An Oscar Mayer Wiener....

After walking all around the museum, we were quite hungry for lunch, so we went to Buddy's Pizza so he could try the Detroit style of this most versatile of foods. It was, as always with Buddy's Pizza, delicious.

After lunch we headed back to the airport, enjoying the spectacle of a truck having its tire blow two cars in front of us. This was rather exciting at highway speed -  a big bang, a big black cloud and flying rubber all over the place.

Highway excitement notwithstanding, we made it back in plenty of time after having a great but brief visit.