Good Evening Blog Readers,
“An Italian Across America” is tonight writing you from Wapakoneta, OH! Now, how exotic is that for a name?!?! LOL Wapakoneta, OH, for those of you “ignorant” (meaning that you “ignore”), is the birthplace of Neil Armstrong, and hopefully I don’t have to tell you who this guy is. So there you go, now you know where Neil Armstrong was born!
We left London, ON this morning around 9AM, had breakfast at a Tim Horton and then proceeded to hit the road, going south west towards Detroit. The drive was not too bad, and other than some construction works towards Windsor, ON, we had a pretty smooth ride.
Customs to come back into the U.S. are always a problem, and although I fully understand what their duties are (coming from a closely related job with the Italian Air Force), I also realize that the Canadian Officer has been without any doubt, much nicer than the US Officer we had to deal with this morning.
My parents taught me through the years that courtesy always comes for free, apparently NOT at the Detroit American border. On top of that, you know how I always like to take a picture of the State sign when we cross a border; well, it is either I am too blind to see a 6x6 road sign, or maybe there is NO sign welcoming visitors!
Anyway, closed that brief chapter, we move on! For the next stop I have to publicly thank our friend John Ellis, who recommended us to stop in Dearborn, MI and go visit the Henry Ford Museum. Tickets are $30 for a combination that grants you access to the Museum itself as well as the Greenfield Village.
We could have added a visit to the Rouge Factory where they assemble the F150 truck, but the courteous ticket agent told us that the plant at the present moment has been stopped because they is an overstock of trucks and they’re waiting to sell them first! She also said the new 2009 F150 model will certainly be more fuel efficient; do you think that is in any case related to the decrease in sales for the old F150?!?! LOL I think so!
It took us almost 5 hours to go through the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, we’re therefore grateful we didn’t purchase the other ticket to the plant as there wouldn’t have been any time to go visit it anyway.
The museum is everything a car “aficionado” like me could ask for. It well represents American History through cars (which one would obviously expect considering the very important name it has), and much more. Here at the Ford Museum is like getting into a time machine and stepping back in time. They have carriages, cars, farm machines, trains, bicycles, and last but not least some other very important cars that have been a silent witness of history making, like the car were President Kennedy has been assassinated.
Other than that, for those of you who like to read about curious things, Henry Ford’s personal collection also includes: The rocking chair from Ford's Theater in which President Lincoln was sitting when he was shot; A collection of several fine 17th and 18th century violins including a Stradivarius; Thomas Edison's alleged last breath in a sealed tube; The bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott; Bill Elliot's record-breaking race car clocking in at over 212 MPH at Talledega in 1987.
Today I took 665 pictures, some are good, some are not, but nonetheless, they represent a piece of this dream that we’re now living through this Italian eyes, wandering around this immense country.
Greenfield Village is a masterpiece, there’s no other way to put it.
Our friend John, while we were talking at Hap’s 70th birthday party, was trying to explain to us what the village looks like, and he certainly did a good job in describing it, but I really have to tell you that this afternoon, I often stopped and asked myself what could have been the best way to describe what I was seeing with my own eyes. I’ve come to the conclusion that to really appreciate this place, you have to come and see for yourself, this is how worth a visit this place is.
Greenfield Village is not only the first and largest outdoor museum in the United States, it is more than that. It is alive, with real people who everyday go to work to impersonate other real people who have come to be in the past and whose memories now live through the words of the Greenfield Village actors.
Henry Ford once said of his Museum:
"I am collecting the history of our people as written into things their hands made and used.... When we are through, we shall have reproduced American life as lived, and that, I think, is the best way of preserving at least a part of our history and tradition..."
Henry Ford was obviously a visionary, an incredibly smart man that through his words several years ago came to prophetically visualize what millions of people witness every year when they cross the gate in Dearborn, MI. This place to all of us interested in American History and Culture, looks and feels like a Disneyland, where instead of the rollercoaster visitors get the chance to ride on a fully operating Ford Model T, someone please tell me if it can get better than that…!
Actually it can, and if you bear reading these words, I’ll tell you why. Today we had the chance to visit almost one hundred historical buildings that has been according to what we’ve been said at the village, from their original locations and arranged in here in Dearborn in a "village" setting.
It took me a while to understand that those buildings had been torn apart in some other places and put back together right there exactly where I was standing, but after a while, I got it!
The Greenfield Village’s intent is to show how Americanslived and worked since the founding of the country, and that is why the Village includes buildings from the 17th century to the present, many of which are staffed by costumed interpreters who conduct period tasks like farming, sewing and cooking (pretty amazing to see the slaves in one of the plantations, to visit their living quarters and to touch first hand what those people had to go through just because of the color of their skin). Greenfield Village has a total of 240 acres (970,000 m²) of land of which only 90 acres (360,000 m²) are used for the attraction.
Some of the most notable homes and buildings include: Noah Webster's Connecticut home (If the name doesn’t ring a bell, think about the word “Dictionary”! Here, in case you didn’t know already, you will find that Webster was actually a lot more than just “the guy who invented the first dictionary”); The Wright Brothers' bicycle shop and home from Dayton, OH (And this almost complete our “Wright Brothers’ experience throughout the USA!); Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory from New Jersey (as the impersonator inside the laboratory told me this morning, we’re on NJ soil right now, because Henry Ford brought to Dearborn trucks and trucks to fill the land around the building); Henry Ford's birthplace; The Logan County, IL courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practiced law.
Some of the most notable homes and buildings include: Noah Webster's Connecticut home (If the name doesn’t ring a bell, think about the word “Dictionary”! Here, in case you didn’t know already, you will find that Webster was actually a lot more than just “the guy who invented the first dictionary”); The Wright Brothers' bicycle shop and home from Dayton, OH (And this almost complete our “Wright Brothers’ experience throughout the USA!); Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory from New Jersey (as the impersonator inside the laboratory told me this morning, we’re on NJ soil right now, because Henry Ford brought to Dearborn trucks and trucks to fill the land around the building); Henry Ford's birthplace; The Logan County, IL courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practiced law.
If you want to know more, and I hope you do after my “brief” introduction, I invite you to visit the Herny Ford Museum website and see for yourself, and if you’re ever in Dearborn, MI, you absolutely have to come visit.
After the this epic visit to the Henry Ford Museum, and the Greenfield Village, we tried to reach Columbus, OH, but being already 5.20PM we didn’t quite make it, due also to some severe weather advisory and a Tornado warning that really freaked me out (I was already picturing myself in a Twister like movie scene trying to escape from the Tornado’s fury through I-75 in Ohio and Michigan!
Yes, OH and MI, we went through two states and one province (Ontario) today, and we have also have a picture for the Ohio sign where, on the contrary of the State of Michigan, there was a big sign over the highway to welcome us in.
The sky all of a sudden seemed to fall down on us, and at one point, just like it happened a few weeks ago in the Virginia, and Washington DC area, I almost had to pull over and stop on the side of the interstate.
We made it to Wapakoneta, OH, where the only place where to have something decent to eat other than you average McDonald’s or BK, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, etc. was a Bob Evans! SO, there you go, my first experience at Bob Evans, and there I was thinking again about Renato’s words and his prophecy about Mama Cass! I have to watch my diet!
One positive side of exit 111 on I-75 where we are at the moment here in Wapakoneta, OH, is the presence of the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum who is roughly 1,000 yards away from the hotel where we’re staying, we can’t obviously miss it tomorrow!
And now a few crunches, a few push-ups, and off to bed, ready for a new day tomorrow.
Other than the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum, tomorrow we have planned a visit to “National Museum of the United States Air Force” located on the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base premises.
We then hope to be able to reach Indianapolis, IN, so that we can get back on track and follow the original schedule previously drawn. Unfortunately that will mean NOT stopping in Columbus, OH, where I had prepared a visit to the German Village and the Brewery District, and Cincinnati, OH, where I had also planned to see some other attractions such as the American Sign Museum, Krohn Conservatory, and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
All right, another long post, I know, pain in the a*s!
Keep reading!
Nico
The sky all of a sudden seemed to fall down on us, and at one point, just like it happened a few weeks ago in the Virginia, and Washington DC area, I almost had to pull over and stop on the side of the interstate.
We made it to Wapakoneta, OH, where the only place where to have something decent to eat other than you average McDonald’s or BK, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, etc. was a Bob Evans! SO, there you go, my first experience at Bob Evans, and there I was thinking again about Renato’s words and his prophecy about Mama Cass! I have to watch my diet!
One positive side of exit 111 on I-75 where we are at the moment here in Wapakoneta, OH, is the presence of the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum who is roughly 1,000 yards away from the hotel where we’re staying, we can’t obviously miss it tomorrow!
And now a few crunches, a few push-ups, and off to bed, ready for a new day tomorrow.
Other than the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum, tomorrow we have planned a visit to “National Museum of the United States Air Force” located on the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base premises.
We then hope to be able to reach Indianapolis, IN, so that we can get back on track and follow the original schedule previously drawn. Unfortunately that will mean NOT stopping in Columbus, OH, where I had prepared a visit to the German Village and the Brewery District, and Cincinnati, OH, where I had also planned to see some other attractions such as the American Sign Museum, Krohn Conservatory, and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
All right, another long post, I know, pain in the a*s!
Keep reading!
Nico
No comments:
Post a Comment