Ford Rouge Plant Tour

We visited the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Michigan so we could take the tour of the Rouge factory complex where they manufacture Ford F150 pickup trucks. This is touted as a factory of the future and we wanted to see for ourselves. It was very impressive.

No photographs are allowed of the truck assembly line or movie presentations. All of these were well done and would have been nice to include...

The tour bus has graphics of a Ford Thunderbird superimposed on the sides

The new factory has a green roof and natural lighting

View from the factory observation tower

After the tour you can visit an example of the truck manufactured here as well as other examples of Ford automobiles from decades past

Back at the Henry Ford museum you can see down this hallway to the aircraft display

Closeup of the above

A replica of the original Wright Flyer is suspended in the entry to the museum. This one was flown quite a bit and proved what the Wright Brothers did that it is quite a handful to fly

Examples of vehicles that compete in the Shell fuel challenges were on display

The Gardens

We travelled to Grand Rapids Michigan and were told the Frederik Meijer Gardens were a "Must See". That proved to be wonderful advice.

There are a number of different gardens that have paths that interconnect them all. These include a sculpture garden, a conservatory, Japanse garden, Farm Garden and shade gardens.

John and Carol Talbert joined us for the visit

Enjoying the Tropical garden

Interesting art work

One of the horse sculptures

All three of the other horse sculptures - each created to prove the size required

Nice attention to detail

Partially polished rock for decoration in Japanese garden

Part of the farm garden display