Sunday - Day 18 Greenfield Village

The campground where we are staying is about a 20 minute drive from the Ford Museum/Greenfield Village complex. The complex opens at 9:30, but the ticket counters open a little earlier. We were at that counter at 9:15. I had purchased an individual annual membership online, several days ago. If you hope to even come close to seeing everything you need to plan on being there 2 days. My membership allowed us unlimited access to both Greenfield Village and the Ford Museum. When you have a membership you bypass the normal ticket line. In addition the membership gets you discounts on other attractions at the complex. If you buy a membership a couple of weeks before your visit they will mail you a membership card. To get mine I had to show them their email confirmation that I had paid for a membership and a photo ID.

The weather forecast said that Sunday was going to be slightly cooler than Monday so we opted to go to Greenfield Village on Sunday, where there is a lot of walking outside.

The first thing we did after walking through the gate was to ride around the perimeter of the village on the train.

The engineer

 Doing a little maintenance

 We watched the next group of passengers steam by

Then we decided to take a Model A (might be a Model T, I can't remember) ride around the village

 Our driver talked non-stop the entire trip

FYI. Even with a membership you pay for some things. An "unlimited ride" pass for members cost us $27. For that we could ride the train, the Model A, the horse drawn carriages, the carousel, etc.

 Wanting to make sure we got our money's worth from the ride tickets we headed to the carousel. Kathy is all mounted up and ready to ride.

By then it was almost lunch time. We ate at a restaurant that served items that would have been served at an 1800's road house. Kathy had chicken with peach sauce. I had noodles with mushrooms, greens and several other vegetables. Hers was good, mine was edible.

People were seated family style at large tables. They weren't very busy when we were in there but before we finished a couple had joined us at the other end of our table. This photo makes it look a lot brighter than it was inside. The only light came from candles and through the windows.

Next to the carousel was a kids play area. There were all types of earthmoving toys for the kids to use moving the sand around the sandbox.

 The "tank" on the right would spew out water whent he kids worked some of the knobs and levers.

 It was hot and this little kid was loving it.

The grounds are beautiful.

Going to Greenfield Village and the Ford Museum is another of my "bucket list items". I don't like crowds, which was why I passed up a chance to see the place when we traveled N/S through Michigan in 2011.

I was disappointed in Greenfield Village. The buildings and history exhibits were interesting but I expected to see working craftsmen. I did watch a man blowing glass and watched a tin smith make a cookie cutter. There was also a guy demonstrating a shuttle loom.The place has all the equipment to card, and spin wool, but the people just talked about. I was amazed that there was no blacksmith, not even a blacksmith shop. There was a saw mill that supposedly had been used to saw a lot of the lumber used at the complex, but it obviously had not been used in many years.

We were at the complex 5 hours and were POOPED by the time we dragged ourselves out. We had walked over 3.5 miles in the heat. (Many of the exhibit buildings are air conditioned so you do get a chance to cool off.)

We rested awhile after getting back to the camper and then went to Leo's Coney Island for supper. It was better than lunch but Ft. Wayne's Coney Island has nothing to worry about is Leo opens a restaurant next door to them.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.