USA Day 48 - the best museum ever!

Total States Visited: 37
Where Are We Sleeping Tonight: Crowne Plaza Metro Hotel

First up this morning, we headed out to Grosse Point where we couldn't get over how different the houses are. It is literally falling down houses of Detroit on one side of Mack Avenue, and huge mansions of Grosse Point on the other! I can't believe how huge a difference that a name makes...

 

Continuing on, it was time to visit the Henry Ford Museum. We were expecting it to be a museum dedicated to the history of the Ford motorcar but how wrong were we! This museum has to be the best museum ever! It covers the entire history of America! After seeing a hot dog car, we had to get a photo of Clare driving a combine harvester :) Then we started exploring such things as the history of the American Kitchen, before visiting the Dymation House display - a round kit house that sadly didn't take off. It was the 1960s view of the future that was great for the environment, but sadly very costly and none of your traditional square furniture would fit in it!

 
 

Next up was the display on American Civil rights which had things like the bus Rosa Parkes refused to surrender her seat for a white person, to a mannequin dress in the traditional garb of the KKK! Just around the corner was a display of guns next to the Lego display....

There was an exhibit dedicated to the history of TV sets, as well as the history of the American teenager's bedroom throughout the years - Clare really liked the one from the 1980's as it reminded her of her room from back then :)

Yesterday we saw Presidential Planes, now it was time for Presidential Limousines. The highlight of the collection is the limo JFK was assented in. Apparently Nixon had it cleaned and used it himself. He really didn't like Kennedy...

 

Time for lunch, we headed into the Wienermobile Cafe for some Oscar Mayer Wiener hotdogs - I had to try the 2 foot long wiener...

 

Back on the road, we headed off for Chicago. After seeing more billboards that made us laugh, we crossed into Indiana where we saw a car broken down on the side of the interstate. We stopped for gas and Clare decided to try a WhatChaMaCallIt bar, purely because the name was funny. It was the best tasting candy bar we have tried on our entire trip!

 
 
 

Finally arriving in Chicago, we drove around trying to find our hotel for a bit, driving through the very colourful Chinatown. Finally finding our hotel, we checked in and the place is wonderful. We headed out for a walk and found Pegasus Greek Restaurant where we decided to have dinner. Sitting on the roof in their veranda dinning area with a wonderful view of the Chicago skyline, we had the best Greek food I have ever eaten! We so have to eat here again.

 

USA Day 47 - a real flying saucer

Total States Visited: 35
Where Are We Sleeping Tonight: Red Roof Inn, Dearborn, Chicago, Michigan

Our main destination today was the USAF Museum where we got to see several huge hangers full of various aircraft. The highlight was the collection of stealth aircraft including the F-117 Nighthawk and the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. The World War 2 hanger had heaps of old bombers and even had a couple of inert atomic bombs! They were obviously dwarfed by the huge silo that contained several different Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICMBs)!

 
 
 

 

After handing over our passports to prove we weren't terrorists, we jumped on the tour bus that drove across the road and onto the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Driving through an active military base was very interesting indeed. Arriving at a hanger located in the middle of the base, we were guided into the hanger to visit the Air Force One Collection - all the planes that have ever flown the President of the USA (not including the current one Obama uses). It was amazing to see how dated some of the aircraft are and how small, considering these were in use in the late 80s, especially having seen how big Elvis' plane is and that was flying in the mid 70s.

 

Hiding in the corner of the hanger was the official flying saucer, aka the Aurocar. They had technical specifications and blueprints for it but apparently they never managed to get it more than a metre off the ground and as such scrapped the concept. Or did they...

 

Having been returned to the main museum, and with our passports safely returned, we headed off on our way up to Detroit. Our first stop was for some lunch at Frisch's Big Boy where I had a fantastic Portobello Burger. Mmmmmmm. With ever decreasing space in the car, we decided not to buy a souvenir Big Boy.

Arriving in Detroit, we were amazed to discover the generally poor conditions of buildings. Not only did we find an abandoned high school for sale, we couldn't believe that there were houses destroyed by fire that had been abandoned amongst houses that people were living in! We found the Michigan Building Theatre that was converted into a carpark in the 1970s but sadly we couldn't drive in and park there. With no street parking nearby either, we drove around and around trying to find an easy place to park but ended up having to drive on :(

 

Continuing on our way, we had to pay a visit to Ellery Street, home of the Heidelberg Project. Designed as an outdoor art 'exhibit', it was amazing to see how one person can make such a difference, lifting an otherwise 'scary' part of Detroit into a place for tourists to want to visit.

 
 
 

USA Day 46 - Amish country

Total States Visited: 33
Where Are We Sleeping Tonight: KOA Dayton, Ohio

Leaving nice and early today, we headed south for Amish country. We were trick slightly by an antique barn: it isn't a barn full of antiques - it is an old barn that sells local produce grown by the local Amish communities. The highlight was seeing a couple of Amish gentlemen talking to the gentleman who runs the barn when suddenly a mobile phone rang - it belonged to one of the Amish men! When was the definition of Amish relaxed to include mobile phones?! With the mental image of an Amish man using a mobile phone burned into my brain, we continued on our way.

 
 

Arriving at the town of Berlin (Ohio, not Germany), we visited several Amish stores, including one that sold crafts made by the young girls from the local Amish community where we bought a couple of really cute things. We found a small cafe run by some friendly Amish people so we decided to have lunch there. It was really strange to see some Amish people driving a mini van! Across the road was a chocolate factory which makes chocolate only from milk that has been milked from cows using traditional Amish methods. We couldn't help but buy up big on chocolate as well as various cold meats - we are going to have a yummy dinner tonight!

 
 
 

Continuing on our way, after finding our selves regularly behind traditional Amish buggies on the road, we arrived at Millersburg where we saw a collection of cool cars from the 1930s just parked on the side of the road... random indeed.