Monday, June 22, 2009

Cars & Guitars 2

The sun finally decided to come out so we loaded up the grand kids and heade for the “Henry Ford & Greenfield Village”. If you have never been there and are coing to be in the are you really should set aside at least one day but two would be much better to visit. If you have a large family or plan on going more then one day check out their special Annual Family Pass it could save you some money.


We spent the first 3 hours wandering around the village, touring the Ford farm, the Wright brothers house and bike shop, Edisin 's laboratory and a ton of other sites, as you walk around the streets you have to dodge the Model T's as they wizz by at 15 mph (there are about 30 of them that you can take a tour in), the horse drawn bus, the men racing their big wheel bikes, barbershop quartets, marching bands and much more. There is something of interest here for everyone, young and old. By mid afternoon it was getting a little hot so we headed for the air conditioned museum.

Rachel wanted to sit on the Rosa Parks bus since they just studied that in school and Nick wanted to see the Lincoln assassination chair from the Ford Theater. After this it was grandpa's turn and we ran over to the traveling exhibit ”Rock Star's Cars and Guitars 2”. It was just like stepping into the Jimmy James Time Machine and setting the destination dial to Rock & Roll, the King of Music. The kids managed to run through here in a record 30 seconds, but then they had to wait about 45 minutes until grandpa emerged from the exit and I could have spend a lot more time in there. I'm just going to throw in a few pictures up to give you a little hint of what it was like.


Z Z Tops 33 Ford Coupe. it had legs.


Alice Coopers Ride.




Jimmie Vaughns set of wheels.



Kid Rocks Lincoln.






Ricky Nelson's Coupe, the same one that he drove in the TV series.














B B King's
































And you always save the best for last Roy Orbison's

Monday, June 15, 2009

SE Michigan, city camping

The lack of a Blog entry for awhile can only mean one thing, we're back in SE Michigan for the summer messing around with the grand kids. We're camped about an hours drive north from the kids, this is one of the few parks that has a decent monthly rate and we're to far away for the emergency kid sitting phone call.
We've been running back and forth for the baseball games but they finally came to an end this week so we might get a few things done know.
This is a city campground that connects to the big city park which is also a wetland area, there are plenty of trails around the lake and to the other city parks (about 4 miles worth). The grand kids are getting a little big so we're bringing them up one at a time this summer and it is so much easier to handle in the confined space of a Class “C”.
There is a lot of wildlife in this area, thousands of geese, turtles and other type birds, they said that there is a Gray Fox in the area this year, that might explain the reduced rabbit population. On one walk last week we spotted about ten different turtles lying their eggs.
Here's a few pictures of the area.

Trail from the Campground.



Baby Geese in the park




Crossing the wetland.



They think we have food for them.




Part of the lake.




Bridge across the lagoon



Mr Black bird.



Mom lying the eggs




UPDATE: Today while sitting and looking out the window I saw the Gray Fox come right through the middle of the campground and into the woods, it was about 2:PM and I watched him for about 200 feet,