Greenfield Village

We all slept pretty well in the camper last night. Esme was a bit cold because she didn’t want to sleep in her sleeping bag because it is too itchy. We decided to get her a liner today to see if that helps. Esme and I were the first ones up but soon we woke everyone else up so we could get ready to meet Grandma and Grandpa at Greenfield Village. I went online and bought year passes since it was cheaper than two daily passes each (we are going to the Ford Museum tomorrow).

While we had breakfast, we played with the dry ice we bought yesterday.

We left the camper at the site and drove 45 minutes to our destination. We were all full of vim and vigor as we met Grandma and Grandpa and set off at the Village. We paid a little extra for rides meaning we could go on a ride in a real Model T when we first got there.

I brought some notebooks and the girls have been drawing pictures and writing down important things in them. Nova made this drawing of a Model T.

We especially liked the Wright Brothers home. Their mom was very mechanical and encouraged them to pursue mechanical careers.

The Wright home, wallpapered ceiling and all

There were a lot of great volunteer docents here. Ray had lots of great questions.

We had to get some candy from the candy shop as well.

This was a cool tree we saw. It was called a London Plane tree.

We also found the Edison Illuminating Company very interesting. Again, two very knowledgeable docents told us about how power was supplied to homes for light only for 20 years before other electric appliances came to use.

The dynamo generator. Nole could tell you more about this. The docent lost me almost immediately in his explanation of this.

Edison’s “idea factory”. He was all about growing his brand and marketing. He even had his people market him as a miracle worker.

Another dynamo. The power company used these to convert steam to electrical current and the factories used them in reverse basically as an engine to power their machines.

Then we got a super expensive lunch paid for by Ray (thanks Ray!). Cal ate his baked potato like a sandwich which I had never seen anyone do before.

At this point the girls were ready to leave. We decided to walk around one more part and then take a horse drawn carriage ride before leaving.

Ray offered to come back to our campsite and help Nole figure out what was going on with our battery. Nole and him had a good method worked out on how to find the problem and they discovered the problem was a faulty circuit breaker. It costs less than $5 to replace. We are going to try and get the part we need tomorrow.

My mom and Ray stayed for dinner. I made steak and cauliflower.

The girls spent most of the evening after that at the campground playground. The boys played video games, biked and played with the last of the dry ice.