Well, last night was interesting. We had severe thunderstorms that kept us awake for the early part of the night. Then at 2 AM, there was a frantic knock at the door. "THERE ARE TORNADO WARNINGS. GET DRESSED AND MEET AT THE CAMP OFFICE," the voice said. We rushed to get dressed while listening to the weather radio. I thought I heard them say that the tornado watch had been cancelled for the county that we are in, but I wasn't sure of how to pronounce the county name, Washtenaw, and could have misunderstood the electronic voice of NOAA radio. So, we continued to get ready, as requested. We put on our hiking boots and tromped through the ankle deep puddles of water on the way to the office. As we neared the gathering point, some of the members of our group were already heading back to their campsite. They asked us, "Didn't you hear the siren?" No, we had not heard the siren and the weather alert had not gone off to say that there was a tornado warning. Oh well, it was good practice and you never know about the weird weather that has been going on around the country. Of course, we didn't get much sleep last night with the thunder and the rain pelting the trailer roof. Things slowed down around 4:30 or 5:00 AM. Then we had to get up to get on the bus for today's tour of some of Detroit, with only a couple hours of sleep.
There was enough time since the last rain for the water to dry up somewhat before we had to line up for the bus. This is what it looks like whenever we take a motor coach tour with Adventure Caravans.
To make sure that everyone gets a chance to have a good seat, every morning we draw a card from the deck of cards that the tail gunner has. The color and number on the card determines which seat you get for the rest of the day. Red is on the driver's side and black is on the curb side. You count seats back from the front until you get to the number on your card. Here is Earl picking the card for today.
The first stop for today was the Ford Rouge Factory Tour.
This is a statue depicting Henry Ford and his dedication to educating and providing for his employees. There was a lot of on the job training in the early days of the company.
They make F-150 pick-up trucks there. Photography is not permitted on the assembly line, but we could take photos through the windows of an observation deck. Ford is trying to go green as much as possible. You can see that the whole assembly line building is covered with ground cover type plants to help provide insulation. Also, there are six humongous Skylights as well as many smaller skylights on this roof, to provide natural light. The ivy on the outside walls also helped with insulations.
Looking off in the distance gives you and idea of how huge the factory in Detroit is.
Many of the individual Ford factories have closed or reduced the production greatly from before, but the industry is starting to come back from the recession of 2008-2009. Here is a sample of the trucks that have been completed and are waiting to be test driven and/or shipped around the country. These (in the foreground and background) are all new vehicles and the ones in back are located near the railroad tracks. We were told that all of the trucks out in the lots and on the assembly line had actually been ordered by a dealer for a customer or for their dealership showroom.
The next stop for the day was for lunch at the American Coney Island. It has been owned and operated by the same family since 1917.
Their specialty is the "Coney Island Hot Dog" with chili and mustard. That is what we had, plus a drink and a small Greek salad. Very yummy! Here is what the place looked like after our caravan group took over the place along with all of their other regular customers and tourists.
After lunch, we went to the birth place of Motown. It is where all of the Motown records were recorded from 1959 - 1972, when the operation was transferred to California. Now, the buildings, which were houses that were made into the recording studio, are a museum dedicated to the artists of the Motown style of music. We took a guided tour of the museum, but no photography was allowed.
Next, we had a guided bus tour around Detroit. There is a monorail people mover that winds around the city.
There are many old buildings. Here is one.
The dog park was different. It had a fence around it like other dog parks, but there were some fake dogs, like this one, in the park as well.
Here, you see the fake one from the previous photo as well as the real one by the tree.
Detroit is a sports town as well as a motor town. This is the Ford Field for minor league ball. They are in the process of building apartments next to the field. Those residents will be able to sit in their living room or on their patio and watch the games.
Comerica Park, home to the Detroit Tigers, was another notable attraction. The theme is definitely tigers.
Our last stop for the day was the General Motors Building. This is the outside of the building.
This is the main entrance that faces the Detroit River which makes the border between the USA and Canada. Clouds are reflected in the mirror-like windows.
We walked around inside the building for awhile. All of the GM vehicles were represented.
We went outside in front of the building to wait for the bus to return to pick us up. There is a riverside park where they have decorated the sidewalk with a world map in the concrete. As a sample, here is North America and Hawaii. The countries are somewhat to scale. We had to look closely to find Hawaii off to the side and away from the U. S. The thing that looks like a washer is a light, I think. Those were all over the map. You can barely see some on the Mexico and southern California areas, too.
This is the view of Windsor, Ontario, Canada from in front of the General Motors Building.
When we got back to the RV Park, I took a photo of some of the Adventure Caravans participants all lined up. Everyone has a yellow sticker on their vehicles.
Tomorrow, we will be going back to Detroit for some more sightseeing and touring. This time we will be driving on our own so that we can spend as much time as we want at the pre-chosen sites.
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