It was an early start today as we left about 8:30 and headed for Dearborn Michigan to visit the Henry Ford museum complex. It was about 50 minute drive from our campsite in to the museum. The museum was much more than I had anticipated, as it was split into three pieces. There was a actual village complex with a steam train and model t trips in one area. Another area housed a museum of industrial innovation and other historic objects. The third option was also an opportunity to tour the local Ford manufacturing plant were they are currently making the Ford F-150 truck. Brenda and Marlene spent the day in the village area while Doug and I visited both the museum and the manufacturing plant.
The tour of the manufacturing plant would not allow us to take pictures so when I got there I was putting my camera away, and in the process I managed to lose my camera GPS. Oh well that was the end of that idea. It was a great GPS but I no longer have it.
While we were watching the various people on the Ford assembly line it became rather obvious that it didn't require a high degree of skill or education for these people to build vehicles. We watched one station where we saw the individual place an outside mirror on a door, on the inside attached two nuts and two small bolts that mirror on, and then attached an electrical cable to control the mirror. That was it. It has to be horribly monotonous to do that day in and day out and perhaps explains to some degree why the United States education system is so poor. All they have to do is teach the individuals very basic skills as far as reading and writing and that's about all they need if they want to work in a manufacturing plant such as the Ford plant.
There were a lot of interesting exhibits in the museum section of the Ford complex, with a wide variety of vehicles cars, trucks, trains, old and new, aircraft, agricultural equipment, and other items including steam engines of every shape and size. I was quite pleased to see that it was not only devoted to Ford products, but to a wide variety of products from around the world although mostly the US.
