The Henry Ford

Trip Start Jun 26, 2008
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Trip End Aug 31, 2008


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Flag of United States  , Michigan,
Thursday, August 7, 2008

After enjoying some some delicious Banana Foster pancakes at the IHOP next to our hotel, we ventured towards Dearborn for Day 2 and the Henry Ford. The Museum itself had tons to see, we spent about 3 hours looking at all the exhibits. There were trains from all era, cars and planes owned by famous people, inventors, and everyday civilians. Some of the steam engines they had there towered over everything else in the museum. They even had an old Oscar Meyer wiener mobile in there. We skipped the special exhibit about chocolate though, after being to Hersey, Pennsylvania several years ago, I'm set on chocolate for life.

After the museum we decided to do the factory tour. It started out with 2 movies first one about the history of the company and automobiles. Then we moved into another theater with rotating chairs. The video was about becoming a truck and so the temperature changed and the floor vibrated as we were shown all the parts of the assembly.
The observation deck showed how the factory is a "green factory" the roof is a live roof covered with grass. All the water that the grass doesn't need is drained off and recycled in the factory. Also the parking lot is made with porous asphalt which drains the water off into the reserves as well. There are solar panels that provide about 12% of the company's heat. It was very interesting to learn about all of this.
Finally we went into the factory itself, the one we saw was used to make the Ford F-150, unfortunately there wasn't any production going on. There is usually a 2 week break, around the 4th of July, between the production of the 08s and 09s but with the slower economy they're not producing anything till around late September. It was still interesting to see all the areas of assembly and scout out the factory itself. They have you on a walkway that circles around the production area showing you all the different parts of the line. Overall it was a whole day experience and was a good time.
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