The Titanic Artifacts Exhibit, Henry Ford Museum

We went to the Henry Ford Museum today to take in the Titanic Artifacts Exhibit. It's a traveling exhibit, I assume one of many, and Calvin has been looking forward to it for weeks. It was very well done, the artifacts nicely spaced out and visitors admitted in small groups every fifteen minutes so that we never felt crowded or rushed. The had artifacts recovered from the wreck as well as photographs, quotes, videos, and even life size models of parts of the ship. Photography was not allowed in the exhibit, so we just snapped a few shots outside.

And of course while we were there we stopped by the Driving America exhibit, the Allegheny Locomotive, and had lunch in Michigan's Cafe.

As a side note, some recommendations from Calvin for books about the Titanic: Tonight on the Titanic, Mary Pope Osborne, and the Magic Tree House non-fiction companion, and Finding the Titanic, by Robert D. Ballard.

Then we came home and enjoyed a warming sunshine (although not quite warm), and played with newspaper and glue. There may be a couple of mummies in our future, assuming our experiment works.

Detroit Institute of Arts

Today? How about a trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts. A number of mothers recommended it, and I've been wanting to go for a while now, but it was actually my parents who suggested it on a whim today. It's a great museum, and with a great number of surprising treasures. Calvin was especially excited about the suits of armor. They set up sketching benches so that patrons could try out their own artistic skills. We enjoyed Greek and Roman artifacts, van Gogh, Picasso, lunch, a textile craft, and artifacts from the ancient Middle East and Egypt. I suspect we'll be back.

That car looks like a grasshopper

We had to make a trip to the airport this morning, and since that brought us more than halfway to the Henry Ford Museum, we decided it warranted a visit. We bought our tickets for the upcoming Titanic Artifacts exhibit, and then spent the morning looking around the newly opened Driving America exhibit. Fun cars, even more fun sets and props, and a couple of interactives to boot. We ate local foods for lunch, built wooden cars on a miniature assembly line, and spent the rest of the afternoon reading outside in this summery spring weather. Good stuff.

Drive-thrus and Drive-ins

"That car looks like a grasshopper"

"and he's talking to the ladybug!"

Working the Ford assembly line

Greenfield Village

Yesterday was a birthday in our house. Jon got the day off for his birthday, and we, deciding to make the most of that and the beautiful weather, headed to Greenfield Village. Calvin has been talking about the Village since we visited the Henry Ford Museum last week. Greenfield Village is outside on the grounds behind the museum and is a collection of authentic historical buildings, like Ford's birth home, Edison's laboratory, The Wright Brother's shop and home, and slave quarters from a brick "plantation" in Georgia. The homes and buildings were purchased and actually moved to the park and set up to give visitors a chance to experience life from a time long ago.

Houses and buildings are not from any one time period, but provide a look at many eras throughout the history of the United States. This is another great place to find serious reenactors at work. We walked through the farm field where farm hands were seriously plowing like mad, trying to get the fall crop planted before the first freeze, then inside the house we met the two women who were preparing the midday meal that would be eaten by all farm workers, and a woman out back who was doing the laundry and hanging it out to dry. These people are for real.

Not all of the village employees are reenactors. Reenactors are always in period dress, while "experts" are dressed in a village uniform. Experts are not in character at any given time, but were wonderfully knowledgeable about their respective positions. Some are mainly docents, like the lady in the printing press and the tinsmith, while others are actual tradesmen, like glass blowers and train restorers. We got to see all of them performing their trades.

We took a wagon ride through the village part of the village

We played in the beautiful fall sun.

Calvin loved the round house—an authentic building, but also one of the only buildings on site that went "out of character" with a museum style room. It also allowed us to go down in a pit underneath a fabulous steam engine.

There is so much to see that, like with the museum, we know we'll have to go back. We didn't spend much time on the village street in the shops, but we did take a trip through town in a Model-T.

We enjoyed midday birthday celebration meal at the mid 19th century Eagle Tavern, Calvin J. Wood, proprietor. We met Calvin Wood on our way in—a truly enjoyable reenactor who loved our own Calvin and offered him a job planting corn in the spring at nine cents an hour, twelve hours a day. We sat at community tables, ate traditional dishes prepared with local foods, mostly organic, and sipped drinks through noodle straws. Really delightful.

We took a train ride all around the park, and watched them fill the ancient steam engine with water at one of our station stops. Calvin loved watching the bell ring, and I loved feeling the moisture of the steam, and getting slightly dotted with soot.

The guys rode on a carousel made in New York almost a century ago.

Covered bridges, scarecrows, beautiful fall folliage, beautiful day. We had such a great time.

Visiting history—Henry Ford Museum

My camera has two—TWO—sd card slots, but do you think either one had a memory card in it when we went to the museum today? No.

The Henry Ford Museum. At just about forty minutes from us, it's going to be a great hands-on, real-as-life tool for our U.S. history exploration. Build a mini car on a mini assembly line, build a real honest-to-goodness Model-T; design, create, and test fly your own paper air planes; climb into the cabin of a plane, the engine of a Steam train, the driver's seat of a car, even the very bus from which Rosa Parks made history; and peruse hundreds of artifacts from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries in the U.S., like the Wienermobile! I see regular field trips in our future.

And thank goodness for camera phones.

In his words: