The bus is completely painted on the outside - you can barely see through the windows.
Once at the plant, no photography is allowed. They show a movie about Henry Ford and how he got started in the automobile industry, then another movie, in a 360 degree theatre complete with special effects, about the current and future of Ford, and then you go up to an observation deck where you can overlook the entire complex. It is huge! And they grow plants on the roof as a means to provide insulation (it decreases the inside temperature by about 10 degrees), to absorb rainwater, and to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen, thereby improving the environment. And it looks pretty too.
Lastly, you stroll along a raised walkway over the assembly room floor and watch the workers put the parts together to make a finished truck. It's quite impressive, and obviously very well thought out and pre-planned. And immaculately clean! The workers each have a task that takes about 1 minute per car as the assembly line slowly passes through the different stations. You can watch all the various parts of a car be installed in precisely the right order to make it the easiest and most efficient and least strenuous for the workers. The cab of the truck is on one line, the box on another, the doors on another. And somehow, all the parts join together with the colors all matching. It was really cool to watch!
Right now they are working a 4/10 shift. Normally, they run 3 shifts, but now because of the economy and lack of sales, they are down to 2 shifts which are revolving. They work two weeks on and then one week off in order to keep everyone employed. We were told that no new employees have been hired in about 4 years!
We were there much longer than we had expected to be - you can stay in the assembly line area as long as you want to and can walk at your own pace - we took it really slow and I was surprised at how fascinated I was with the whole thing. So we didn't get very far today.
After leaving The Henry Ford we decided to drive into Detroit just to check it out since we were so close (The Henry Ford is in Dearborn, which is a suburb of Detroit). I didn't realize that Detroit is just a stone's throw away from Canada, but we didn't cross over. We just drove through Detroit and took a quick look around. The downtown area looks like the typical big city - a mix of old 1900 vintage buildings and some newer ones, and reminiscent of L.A. - lots of graffiti and interesting characters walking around. It appears that they are trying to improve the area - you can see where buildings are either already torn down or in the process of being so, and new buildings are taking their places.
After a quick drive through, we hopped back on the freeway heading towards Lansing, which is more towards the middle of the lower peninsula of the state and the capitol. We are just a few miles away from Lansing now - we'll visit the capital building and then head north tomorrow.
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