THE ROAD TRIP
WEEK 4

DAY 27 – Friday, April 9 (Last Day)

START: Ann Arbor, MI

END: Sayreville, NJ

MILEAGE: 683 miles

HIGHLIGHTS: Henry Ford Museum, Long drive home

Sam went out first thing in the morning to pick up fresh bagels for breakfast and we all sat around the kitchen table for a little while talking.  As much as we wanted to linger, we knew we had the longest day yet ahead of us, so we packed up the car, said our goodbyes and were on the road by nine-thirty.  From there, it was only an hour to the Detroit suburb of Dearborn and the Henry Ford Museum. 

Say the words Henry Ford Museum and if someone doesn’t know better, they assume it must have something to do with cars, like a tour of the assembly line or something.  And of course if those people know Lauren and I real well, they say, “Why would you go there?”  Actually the Henry Ford has nothing to do with cars.  Well, it has a little to do with cars, but not much (and incidentally, tours of the assembly line are available for a separate fee).  The fact is Henry Ford, the man, was somewhat fanatical about collecting American historical artifacts in his day, and the museum, to put it simply, is the place where he stored everything.  We had the somewhat misguided notion that the entire museum was essentially a hodgepodge of quirky and often morbid tidbits of Americana – mostly because that’s the way a lot of the literature out there tends to paint the place.  And for the first thirty minutes or so, that’s exactly what it was.  Lined up along the front wall were such random objects as the theater chair Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot, George Washington’s officer kit, the original Oscar Mayer Weinermobile, and perhaps the museum’s most notorious piece, Thomas Edison’s last breath, preserved in a glass test tube.  I know.  I know the question you’re about to ask.  It’s the question everyone asks whenever they see or hear about this thing, and the answer is, “I don’t have a freakin’ clue.” 

Front and center as soon as we walked in was the Henry Ford’s newest and proudest acquisition: the Rosa Parks bus.  The actual bus from Montgomery, Alabama where Ms. Parks refused to relinquish her seat to some arrogant white prick, officially giving the civil rights movement its biggest kick in the ass to date.  The bus was shiny yellow and green, completely restored and open for visitors to step inside and look around.  We all know the story of what happened on this bus in 1955, but once inside we heard the story after the story.  When the city of Montgomery eventually retired the bus, it was bought by a local family who ripped out all the seats and used it to store lumber.  Years later, fairly certain the bus in their possession was the fabled #2857, the family scoured old documents and public records proving its authenticity.  When they put it up for public auction in 2001, the trustees of the Henry Ford knew they were going to have to fight the Smithsonian, America’s other historical attic, for the thing.  They told their people, “Do whatever you have to do, pay whatever you have to pay… just get that bus.”  Nearly half a million dollars later, it has a new home here in Dearborn.

Lauren and I sat somewhere in the middle of the bus next to half a dozen other people listening to a museum employee recount the whole back story.  At one point the man pointed at me and said, “You sir, are sitting in the exact seat Rosa Parks refused to give up.”  I know it seems silly, but it gave me goose bumps.  History is really an amazing thing.  You know that these events of course happened, but they are recounted with such reverence and almost worshipful hindsight that they play out like epic fiction starring larger-than-life heroes in sweeping locations.  So to actually sit in the very place where something so momentous occurred brings you back to the reality of what actually happened.  This bus was just an average bus.  In fact, it was surprisingly small.  If you didn’t know the story behind it, you’d never think it was anything special at all.  That meant Rosa Parks was probably just an average lady.  She didn’t realize she was going to effect history that day.  All she knew was that her feet were killing her.  And yet with a seemingly insignificant act of defiance in this most innocuous of places, she changed everything.  And listening to the story inside that bus, I felt a warm and almost tingly feeling wash over me, knowing that I was not only touching history, but sitting right on top it.   

After the Rosa Parks bus and that first line of random historical trinkets, the displays gave way to the meat and substance of what the Henry Ford Museum is really all about: a salute to American ingenuity and industrialism.  Spread out over a twelve-acre hanger were large exhibits detailing American industrial innovations pertaining to flight, farming, production, power and other such applications.  Every single exhibit could have been suffixed with the words, “Through the years.”  One of the first exhibits we came to was a collection of household appliances “through the years”, showing how things like washing machines, ovens and dishwashers evolved from decade to decade.  I know it’s hard to imagine how looking at a dishwasher could be even remotely interesting, yet it was.  Mostly because you’d squint your eyes, lean in, tilt your head one way, then the other, walk completely around the thing and examine it from all sides before finally saying, “How in the hell would this thing have even worked?”

Moving on, Lauren and I spent several minutes looking at what we assumed were small funky-looking trains, only to realize, oh hey those are steam-powered farm tractors.  I can’t imagine that was a fun, or altogether safe, piece of machinery to operate.  The museum had managed to get a hold of dozens of old flywheels and millworks that were once powered by everything from water to coal to steam.  The sheer size and complexity of these machines made my head spin.  Each one of them was designed and maintained without the help of computers or calculators or other precision equipment.  Just careful design, meticulous measurements, extremely skilled craftsmen and well-trained operators.  Of course, looking at the giant pistons and other moving parts, you just knew that at some point somebody had gotten too close and was either crushed or ripped to pieces.  Because, you know, I think about stuff like that.  We spent a bit of time in the “culture” section, which showed “life through the decades” from the Cold War to present day.  In each decade they had displays of music, clothing and other pop culture items specific to the generation.  We both had to admit it was a little weird to see a Speak-n-Spell mounted in a glass case for the 1980’s segment.  There’s nothing like seeing an object from your childhood on display inside a museum to make you feel old at the age of twenty-six.  

I really liked the way the Henry Ford Museum was set up and laid out.  The whole place is essentially one ginormous room with several large clusters of objects fitting particular themes.  But it wasn’t sectioned off or organized to death giving off the feeling that you were on some tediously structured guided tour.  One minute you’d be looking at a cotton gin and then suddenly find yourself in the antique furniture section.  Even within the exhibits you never felt as though you were being corralled from one object to the next.  You just kind of wandered from display to display, from artifact to artifact, reading the descriptive cards on each one, vaguely aware of how the piece fit into an overall timeline. 

You really could lose yourself in this place.  Lauren and I lost track of time several times as we found ourselves absorbed in whatever topic, in whatever section we happened to be in the middle of.  At some point we suddenly realized we were starving, so we headed back toward the Weinermobile for a lunch of some very large and sloppy hot dogs.  By afternoon we were starting to feel sluggish and didn’t devote nearly as much time, energy or attention to the rest of the exhibits.  We barely read any of the descriptions, simply acknowledged the artifacts for what they were and moved on. 

We did spend a bit of time at an exhibit for something called the Dymaxion House, mostly because there were museum employees narrating the whole exhibit so we didn’t have to read anything.  For anyone who laments the boring cookie-cutter look of American suburbia, come to the Henry Ford and take a look at this housing prototype and you’ll be thankful the thing never caught on.  Circular in shape, constructed of aluminum suspended from a central pole and looking like a cross between a New Jersey diner and Space Mountain at Disney World, the Dymaxion House was conceived by the same guy who invented the geodesic dome as an efficient and affordable means of housing.  It could be purchased for the price of a Cadillac and delivered in a self-contained kit, which could be assembled on site in less than a week.  To believe the narrator’s monologue we came very very close to seeing these things mass produced and assembled all over the country following World War II.  In the end, it was the inventor’s pride and eccentric personality, and not the ridiculous spaceship look of the thing, that prevented the Dymaxion House from ever being distributed.  The Henry Ford has one of only two prototypes that were ever actually constructed. 

We breezed through the next few exhibits, only stopping once to look at a replica of the original Wright Brothers airplane in the flight section.  By the time we got to the “cars through the years” exhibit we were pretty much walking briskly down the line, witnessing the evolution of a hundred years of automotive manufacturing pass by in mere seconds.  We spent a few extra seconds in the presidential car area, taking pictures of the limousine President Kennedy was riding in when his number came up, but after that we decided we’d had enough.  It was past four o’clock and our brains and our eyeballs were fried.  It was time to call it a day. 

The Henry Ford is truly an awesome museum and a place I could literally see myself spending many days inside just exploring.  Our time here was proof enough that a single day simply isn’t sufficient to take the entire place in.  Even glossing over everything in the afternoon we’d still only managed to see half of all there was to see here.  Separate from the main hanger, and operating on a separate admission fee actually, is Greenfield Village, which is comprised of over a hundred relocated historical buildings (not replicas), including the Wright Brothers’ original bicycle shop, Thomas Edison’s laboratory and even Henry Ford’s own birthplace.  The Village supposedly depicts how Americans have lived and worked since the founding of the country.  Yeah, if I lived in the area, I would most certainly buy myself an annual pass to the Henry Ford then come by once every few weeks for a couple hours and spend that time focusing on one section, looking at everything there was to look at, reading everything there was to read and really taking the time to absorb it all.   

Of course, for as intriguing and fascinating as it is, the Henry Ford doesn’t strike me as a very kid-friendly place.  I’m sure there are plenty of parents and loyal museum patrons that would disagree with me on that, but the fact of the matter is this isn’t a very hands-on museum.  It really is all about looking and reading, not touching.  Believe me, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, and I certainly wouldn’t want the Henry Ford to change its design just to bring in those few extra interstate families with their A.D.D. kids.  Unfortunately for us though, I don’t see Lauren and I taking the time to get back here until after all our children are much, much older.

After making an obligatory pass through the gift shop (where I found a shotglass depicting a primitive of the automobile), Lauren and I made the long walk across the Henry Ford’s giant parking lot, got back in the car, took a deep breath and gave each other a knowing look.  We were about to start the last official leg of our journey.  And we both knew this leg was not going to be any fun.  At all.  The first rest stop we pulled into after leaving Dearborn seemed to drive that point home.  All trip long, we’d taken small roads, seen unique out of the way places and enjoyed sparse crowds of mostly pleasant, smiling, patently non-interstate people.  This rest stop, at its own exit off I-80, was generic and crowded, full of loud and miserable-looking people who were screaming at their kids, stuffing their faces with greasy processed food, giving the counter personnel far more grief than their minimum wage warranted and leaving a trail of upended soda cups and broken ketchup packets behind them when they left.  In short, the kind of everyday sloth and drudgery we would be returning to in no time at all.  Though on the bright side, for the first time in almost a month, we didn’t feel self-conscious about our Jersey license plate.  It was among kin now. 

It was dark by the time we got into Pennsylvania and the drive across our state took for-ev-er.  Pennsylvania is just not a fun state to travel.  At least not on the interstate.  All the usual conveniences you take for granted on an interstate are curiously absent in Pennsylvania.  Every other state has signs preceding every exit informing you of the services available just off the off ramp: gas, food, lodging, etc.  That way people like us don’t have to waste time getting off the highway knowing there’s only a McDonald’s nearby.  We can wait until we see the sign for Subway and get off there.  Pennsylvania doesn’t have any of that.  The only place where services were advertised was at the self-contained, state-controlled rest stops.  I don’t know if Pennsylvania is just trying get as much travel income as possible by making sure people only patronize establishments that are paying rent to the state, or if there are legitimately no services of any kind available anywhere along the entire length of the Turnpike except at those establishments paying rent to the state.  Either way, it got really frustrating going fifty or more miles at a stretch only to discover that our only choice for food was yet another Burger King.  For Lauren it got downright painful having to go that long between pee breaks since we were never altogether certain there would even be an open gas station at any given exit.  She didn’t feel comfortable doing her business the way she’d been doing it all trip long whenever the distance between bathrooms became too great.  Peeing beside an empty road in the Utah desert was a lot different from peeing on the side of a busy Pennsylvania highway.

Around midnight, we took a chance at an exit and actually found an open place called Donut Connection.  Inside you had the choice of two types of donut and two types of bagel.  I saw the words “Iced Latte” on the darkly lit menu above the counter and asked how many shots of espresso were in it.  The listless teenage girl working the place gave me an “are you kidding” look and said she didn’t know.  Not in the mood to force the issue I ordered the latte and a donut while Lauren got a bagel with a hot chocolate.  Out at the car, I took one bite of my petrified donut before spitting it out into the paper bag.  I took one sip of the sugar water that passed for a latte at Donut Connection then, gagging, threw the rest in the trash.  Lauren was likewise unable to stomach her bagel and threw out her hot chocolate after discovering that “lukewarm” was a more applicable adjective for what they’d sold her.  When we saw a Starbucks logo at the next rest stop, we pulled off gladly.  It certainly wasn’t as good as the stuff we’d been drinking all the way through Washington State, but after our conversation with the Espresso Lady, I guess we’d expected that.  It was just an unpleasant fact we were going to have to get used to if we planned on continuing our newfound espresso addiction. 

Back on the road, we pulled out all the stops (a whole month’s-worth of them in fact) and did everything we could possibly think of to stay awake and alert – Mad Libs, reading from the journal, reading from magazines, comedy tapes, car games, loud mix CD’s, fiddling with the radio – but it all did little to improve what was quite simply a horrible night.  I’ve never been so happy to see the Philadelphia skyline on the horizon.  We had to at least stop at our apartment and pick up clothes for Easter, which was coming up on Sunday.  My own personal goal had been to get to the apartment and just crash there for the night, continuing on to Lauren’s parents’ house in Sayreville, New Jersey the following morning.  But once we pulled up, I knew I didn’t have the energy to drag all our bags, boxes, cameras, jackets, and anything else we didn’t want stolen out of the car and up the stairs.  We both decided it would actually be easier to drive the additional two hours to Sayreville, where we wouldn’t have to worry about someone breaking into the car, than to unload everything in Philly.  The half-hour pit stop, where we peed, got clothes and made sure the place was still in one piece after a month away, gave me a third wind and we made it to Sayreville less than ninety minutes later. 

It was just past four-thirty in the morning.  Once again we brought in only what was absolutely necessary.  We barely said hello to Lauren’s parents, but went upstairs to the guest bedroom, collapsed on the bed and didn’t wake up until well into the afternoon.  It was in this way, in the most anticlimactic fashion possible, that our Road Trip came to an end.