Days 30 & 31

St. Ignace to Dearborn, Michigan

We said goodbye to the quaint Mackinac Island area and hopped on the Mackinac Bridge to cross over to the Lower Peninsula. The town on the other side of the bridge is Mackinaw City. Now, you may notice that there appears to be two ways that these Michigan people spell Mackinac. One ends with "ac" and one ends with "aw." In either case, we learned, it is pronounced the same - with the "aw" sound at the end! Go figure!

We crossed through most of the Michigan "glove" and pulled into our camp site in Dearborn. The next day we headed to the nearby Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and the Greenfield Village.

The museum is dedicated to American innovation, which includes sections on Trains, Planes, & Automobiles, as well as Furniture, Musical instruments, Farming, Civil Rights, Hallmark Christmas Ornaments, Mathematics, and a prefabricated home designed by Buckminster Fuller and intended to be built from supplies left over from World War II.

Here are some miscellaneous items

As of today the truck odometer is at 125,902. We've travelled over 5,000 miles and we're about two-thirds of the way across the US. We are certainly going to exceed that 10,000 miles that I originally estimated. It's all the side-trips that we're taking, but that's what is making the trip so fun!

We are also one month into our trip! We have never camped in our RV this long before, but it all seems to be going well and Susan hasn't strangled me in my sleep yet. Fingers crossed that our good luck continues!

The actual Presidential Lincoln that JFK was riding in.

Susan's father worked for the Lincoln-Mercury division of Ford and she recalls they had many Ford-brand cars over the years she was growing up. They had almost this exact car - a 1968 Mercury Cougar!

Who doesn't love a model train layout!

A really thoughtful section on the progress made on Civil Rights in the USA. The KKK robe and the propaganda pamphlets were sobering reminders of our troubled past. Look how the right-wing is taking a page from this era and continuing to attack our public schools, except now they call it "Critical Race Theory."

The actual bus Rosa Parks was arrested from.

The museum held our interest and was very well done. Next we stepped outside to Greenfield Village. Henry Ford dedicated the village in1929 and opened it to the public in June 1933. They've been expanding it ever since, They move buildings from around the country to this village that are of historical significance. Examples include the Wright Brothers home and also their bicycle shop, the courtroom building Abraham Lincoln practiced law, and etc. Some really great Americana captured and on display.

So, who is reading this blog? I believe we have about 20- 30 viewers, comprised of our kids, our extended family and our friends. Unfortunately, this Blog format doesn't allow for you gentle readers to comment. But, we've been receiving very nice comments and feedback from many of you via email and texts. Thanks Mark F., Becky S., and Anne S. !

In case you are curious what the inside of our trailer looks like, here's a promotional video of some salesman giving a tour of our exact model and year. Everything is identical to ours (except the upholstered chairs and dinette cushions are gray not brown.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO7L8QtXhQU

Also, our map is starting to show a respectable number of states! Tomorrow we head into Ohio!

How would you like using this bathroom?