Celebrating the 4th of July in Michigan

It was the perfect place to celebrate The 4th of July... old buildings decked out in red, white and blue bunting, carousal music playing favorite americana songs, model T's driving quietly on the streets with a few horse drawn wagons, and old fashion bicycles that you always see in pictures but wonder if anyone could really ride, and a village green with families playing old fashion games.

Not bad for a last minute plan! We like to be in Arkansas on the lake with my parents for the 4th, enjoying family, a swim in the lake and a lazy evening of watching fireworks across the lake from the comfort of Grandma's porch. But somehow the price of gas and an 18 hour drive each way seemed more than handle this year. We thought about lots of options, Williamsburg, family camp, Lake Erie, and Greenfield Village, but nothing solid.

We decided on June 30th to go on vacation over the 4th. I used to resent this last minute decision making, but I've come to see it as a romantic way to live. Decide you're going, book the hotel, load up the car, find a dog sitter and away we go! Baseball was finished on the 2nd, Eric's schedule was open, we had one week before we would start teaching Sunday School for a month and we could still find a decent hotel close to where we wanted to be. And we realized that with all our schedules it was NOW or NEVER for a summer get away!

We went to Dearborn Michigan. A quick 3 hour drive away and spent 4 days visiting The Henry Ford (museum) and Greenfield Village. Olivia rated it a 9 next to last year's Williamsburg (a 10 ... "the pool was cleaner" but we won't go into that).


Everyone had a blast. Olivia loved playing with the old fashion games and puzzles and teaching others to use them. Ben got to have his picture taken with members of the La De Da's and the Nationals (he of course favors the La De Da's because of their red and white uniforms). Everyone took a try walking on stilts. Ben played 1800's baseball and watched 1800's baseball. Olivia went to a one room school house for a 15 minute class as often as she could and could "make something" each day. Eric tried his hand at making a glass creation with molten glass at 1200 degrees. And I realized with great excitement that we covered some American and Ohio history. (Being unplugged from the tv has great advantages. After a swim in the pool, we spent our evenings in the hotel reading about incredible folks from history like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, The Wright Brothers, George Washington Carver, Robert Frost...

Another fine example of how fun last minute leaps can be!