Road Trip - The Ford Bungalow

The Marquette area can't seem to shake the showery weather.  Today was overcast, with rain in the forecast.  Mike and I wanted to get his starter repaired so we had a quick breakfast and got outside.  As we remove the starter the rains came, fortunately there was a tent that we moved the Model A so we could stay dry.  Fortunately the repair was the fairly simple, the bendix Mike bought to replace the broken unit was for a V8 which does not work on a Model A.  I had a spare Model A bendix which we installed to fix the problem.

Nan & I were scheduled for a road trip to the Ford Bungalow and had to be at the starting point at 10:45.  The start point was 12 miles away.  The actual drive to the bungalow would be about 75 miles.  The trip was in and out of the rain and when we arrived at the Bungalow it had stopped raining.  Our tour of the Bungalow was very interesting.  The guides were a group of ladies who rent this facility twice a year and were very knowledgeable about the house.  Walking around the home it was interesting to think about the famous people who have stayed in this house.  I especially liked the upstairs porch and the living room.  The home is much bigger inside than it looks from the outside.  We enjoyed our tour and soon headed out for our return trip. 

After a stop for a quick lunch we headed to Alberta Village Museum.  This facility is the remains of  planned community now own by Northern Michigan University as a research facility.  (Wayne took this picture)  In addition to a planned community, this was a sawmill and a major part of the his Northern Michigan Operation (NMO) which provided wood for Ford's auto production.  I think all of the Model A station wagons were produced here.

The next stop was Michigamee.  This is a little community that looks like it's one step shy of becoming a ghost town.  This was a bustling mining town at one time, but now serves as a fishing and hunting center.  Some of the downtown buildings look like something you would find in a ghost town.  But there is a very nice museum and it had lots of interesting material on display.

Tonight we had a very enjoyable dinner with Wayne & Sue and David & Karen Mossman from New Zealand.