Day 19 - When In Holland, You Must Visit a Windmill - One More Car Museum Never Hurts!

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Last night was early to bed, and this morning late to rise. Those Doubletree beds sure are comfortable! After a quick breakfast at Bob Evans across the street, it was off to our first destination just a couple of miles down the street - Windmill Island Gardens. The town we stayed in last night is called Holland, so it is only natural that it have a Dutch heritage, and some local Dutch attractions. Sure enough, Tulip Festival is really big around here, but that's in mid-May so we already missed it. The Windmill Island Gardens has an actual 250 year old Dutch windmill, disassembled in the Netherlands and shipped back here and reassembled back in the 1960's. It is a working windmill and has a miller on site who operates it to mill the grain they use locally and sell in the gift shop. In addition, there is a Dutch organ, a carousel, and some replica houses used as a miniature museum and gift shop. There are also flower gardens, and a greenhouse but all the tulips were gone as they are out of season.

After watching the obligatory 10 minute film about the windmill, we went over to get the tour. The tourguides were dressed in authentic Dutch costumes right down to the wooden shoes. Someone asked about the wooden shoes, why they wore them and if they were comfortable. Evidently, they were first introduced in the Netherlands due to a leather shortage. They require very thick socks to be comfortable and she was wearing 9 pairs of socks. She said that now that they were broken in after 4 months of wearing, they were actually comfortable. Also, once the leather shortage went away, some of the fishermen and farmers liked the wooden shoes so much that they world just make them large enough that they could slip their leather shoes into the wooden shoes and get the comfort of leather along with the advantages of wood.

The windmill itself was 8 stories tall and we got to visit the first 5. The first 3 floors are brick, and are actually Michigan brick and not part of the original 250 year old windmill. They had to raise the windmill a couple of stories to get it above the local treeline and there was no hill available like back in the Netherlands. There are even some bullet holes from WWII where German planes shot at the windmill. We were able to see all the mechanism and the millstones used to grind the flour. If we had been there yesterday, we would have seen the actual milling in process, as they still give tours when the windmill is in action. Surprisingly, the tourguide told us that when they were milling, the mechanism was pretty quiet with only some whirring sounds from the gear engagement. The outside blades and the main shaft made almost no sound, and since the millstones were separated by flour, it acted as a lubricant and also generated almost no sound. I was surprised as I expected it would be loud.

We finished the remaining portions of the grounds and were ready to head out about noon. Our next stop was the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, about 50 miles away. I couldn't remember what the museum was supposed to be like, but I never pass up an opportunity to see a car museum. Once we were out of Holland, the roads opened up to some wonderful twists and turns, ups and downs as were rode between the farms. Just as we were within a couple of miles of the museum, all of a sudden we cam around a corner to another dirt road. Since it was only a mile, and we didn't know if the museum might be on the dirt road, we braved along and just as the museum was in sight, we crossed a road and were on pavement again.

The Gilmore Car Museum advertises itself as North Americas Largest Car Museum. I don't know if them mean building and acreage or actual number of cars. There are a total of 20 buildings with 16 of them containing exhibits. The remain 4 are the 1940's Diner, the Train Tower, The Gas Station, and a separate dollhouse miniatures museum. Some of the buildings were dedicated to specific brands like Franklin, Hudson, Pierce Arrow, Cadillac, Lincoln, and Model A Ford. There were hundreds of cars, most impeccably restored, but a few were in original, as found, unrestored condition. Many of the early cars were brands I had never heard of before. In the very early cars, there was an explanation of the white tires often seen on older cars. It seems that rubber is naturally white, so when tires were first produced they were always white. As time went by, people didn't like the white tires as they would look dirty, so tire vendors began dying the rubber gray or black. As black tires became more popular, the white tires were phased out, but were actually still available through the 1920's.

The museum also included sections on steam and electric cars, a small vintage motorcycle section, and even a pedal car exhibit. Most of the cars were pre-48 though the Lincoln and Cadillac buildings did have some more modern cars. All-in-all, it is certainly one of the best car museums for variety. There were even a few cars being driven around the grounds! I've had my car museum fix for the next few days, I should be alright to visit some art museums now. Seriously though, this is really an excellent car museum, and I look forward to going through all the pictures I took.

It took us about 3 hours to go through the museum, and we were moving quickly. We could easily have spent the entire day! At 3:00 we headed out to East Lansing, the next stop on our busy day to visit with Jody's Aunt Jeannie. As we left Gilmore, the first turn the Garmin lady set for us was another dirt road. Having none of this, we kept going straight until she recalculated a paved road further down. From there we rode through the most enjoyable twisty-turny country roads of the day. After about an hour, we were in East Lansing and Jody called Jeannie to see where we should meet. We met for coffee at her favorite local bookstore - Shuller's. Jeannie looks great! She was really glad to see us and we talked about our trip, and she and Jody caught up on family. We were back on the road at 6:00 on our way to our final stop of the day - Dearborn. Actually, we're a couple of miles from the Henry Ford Museum and 10 miles outside Detroit.

The plan for tomorrow is to head into Detroit to visit the Detroit Institute of Art in the morning. In the afternoon, we will head across the border to Chatham-Kent to visit our friend Diane that we met on a cruise last year. It should be a great day!

208.4 Miles Today

3147.5 Miles Total

3.847 Gallons Today

79.755 Gallons Total

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