August 20 at the Henry Ford Museum

Early on August 20 we saw the Heidelberg project (see earlier post) and then had our only meat meal of the trip in Oak Park at the JCC there.

Then we went to Dearborn to  The Henry Ford Museum. It is huge - about 12 acres under one roof.  One exhibit I thought interesting was the Presidential vehicles. The first image (images of the limos are from the linked website) is the Presidential vehicle used by Kennedy (although not the one he used in Dallas when he was shot).. 

The second image has the one used by F. Roosevelt.

The also had vehicles used by Presidents from T. Roosevelt to Reagan (both vehicle images were from the internet).

Of course they had dozens of vintage Ford (and other make) cars, buses, trucks, etc.

 They also had some airplanes (Ford made airplanes for a while). Ann is in front of a 1950s model (in the third image) which looks like a flying diner..

M is in front of a vehicle used to advertise hot dogs in the 4th image.

We also saw the IMAX movie 'Jerusalem' while at the Henry Ford Museum - for some reason there is an IMAX there. 


A surprise to me (Ann didn't find this exhibit) was the presence in the museum of the Dymaxion house. This was a design creation of Buckminster Fuller in 1930 (redesigned in 1945 and constructed a few years later - it also looks a bit like a diner - the 5th image is from the linked website). His goal was to create a house that could be produced on an assembly line (in parts so it could be shipped and assembled easily) with minimal wasted space (e.g., no halls connecting rooms), minimal utility space (all the heating/cooling/plumbing would be near the center) and minimal cleaning problems (no corners). Fuller never got financing for this (some minor Ford corporation research was involved). Dymaxion is a combination of Dynamic, Maximum and Tension. The house in the Ford museum is the only one ever made.

After the museum we went back to the Saint Regis and then went out and had some drinks with Chris and Donna Mann (I knew Chris from transportation research work).