Trans-Canada Trek: Grand Finale to our Epic Journey

One constant as we have crossed miles of prairie is a succession of interesting farm buildings. The new, well-maintained ones are reassuring about the health of many farms and ranches but the picturesque ones that are in various states of disrepair and decay are the most interesting. You may have noticed many of them sprinkled through earlier posts and here is a small collection of some I liked as we drove through South Dakota and Minnesota.

Abandoned House in South Dakota

Minnesota Barn and Buildings

Lonely Barn in Minnesota

Grass-Roofed Buildings with a Tower in Minnesota

Minnesota Barn and Silo

Falling Barn in Minnesota

Crossing the "Wide Missouri" River in South Dakota

Crossing the Mississippi River in Minnesota as a Barge Passes

Chicago!

Chicago Power Plant

As we drove through Chicago at rush hour our goal was to stay somewhere quaint on the East Shore of Lake Michigan in a quiet little beach town. I searched the web and focused on an Inn in New Buffalo with shingled cottages that looked perfect. Since the season was past its peak we thought finding a vacancy would be easy. We pulled up in front thinking it looked a little quiet, realized we saw no lights or activity, called the office number from the truck and learned their season ended on Labor Day and they all went away…darn!

That was probably the reason there was almost no traffic as we drove through the little resort towns! We wondered if the cooling tower we passed right in the middle of everything had anything to do with the quiet because it looked like nuclear power plant cooling tower – had to check to verify that it was a coal and natural gas plant. We were relieved that all of those people whose neighborhood surrounded it weren’t living in the shadow of a “nuke.”

The next day took us through Ann Arbor, Michigan and on to Ypsilanti, a bedroom town for the auto industry. We had no idea how many auto plants are scattered within a 50-mile radius of there. Our friends, Jodie and Mike, were not only fun to stay with but we gained a new perspective on the economic and social value of those plants and jobs. We got to take a tour of the Ford Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan and walk above the assembly floor while F-150 trucks moved along the assembly line. The plant is named for the Rouge River which flows along the property where it was first built starting in about 1919. It grew and evolved into Ford's largest manufacturing plant in the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1990s Ford embarked on a project to turn the plant into a modern, ecologically sustainable state-of-the-art manufacturing plant, designed to address the needs of both auto manufacturing and the environment. It is also designed to save Ford money by building several different vehicles or models on the same line. In the past, only one model was built on each very specific line.

The plant is LEED certified, has a living roof covered by thousands of tiny sedum plants to decrease energy consumption and improve air quality. There is a water treatment system that purifies the water leaving the building from rain and manufacturing. The skylights provide sunlight and use 50% less artificial light than previously.

That “re-born” plant is what we toured.

The tour allows you to walk on a catwalk above the manufacturing line and watch the vehicle be assembled, tested and driven off the line. Watching the workers assembling actual vehicles gave us a much better understanding of the amount of skill and physical labor involved in building a vehicle. The engineering and testing involved in the assembly line itself was obvious as well. This plant is designed with climate control and a moving wooden platform for each vehicle as it progresses through the line. Individual elevator stands allow height adjustment so workers can access the vehicle without as much bending and straining as in older lines. It has advanced tools designed to do less damage to workers’ bodies over time.

The assembly process is broken into steps, each allowing 60 seconds. That means that each worker along the line has 60 seconds to do whatever their part of the assembly requires. It also means that every 60 seconds a new vehicle rolls off the line.

The tour was profoundly impressive and both of us commented that we would never look at a vehicle and its parts in the same way again. It was more like a ballet than a heavy industrial site.

Bus Ride to the Rouge Plant

Henry Ford Honorarium at Rouge Plant

The last item on our trip checklist was to visit Niagara Falls from the ground. After flying over it so many times we decided to feel the spray and experience the magic. The magic is well hidden behind many layers of commercial schlock designed to part you from your dollars. The Falls are beautiful and as dramatic as imagined but the scene around them reminded us of a cheap amusement park that smelled of stale popcorn and was overrun with shysters; a disappointment. We left the area after walking around for a couple of hours and found a quiet motel and a wonderful little Italian Restaurant for our last night on the road. If you are ever in Williamsville, New York and need some extraordinary food in a quiet little corner try the Amaretto Bistro.

As we approached upstate New York and continued into Massachusetts we noticed that there are some significant signs that summer is ending. The sumac and swamp maples are getting quite a bit of color and the sky has attained that blue that comes with warm days and cool, dry nights.

Home was so welcome! We wouldn't trade a minute of the journey or erase one memory but we have to admit that it felt really good to turn into our driveway. If you need an illustration of The Diva's reaction to being back in her familiar surroundings, here it is:

She leaped from the truck, bounced with delight around the driveway, rushed to greet her human brother, Mike, and gave every indication that she was overjoyed. She was a wonderful, patient traveller with perfect manners in every situation she had to deal with but there were times when we could tell she was not delighted to be away from her nest and her predictable schedule.

We drove 11,471 miles in 61 days!

Credits and Acknowledgements

Our Support Team

There is no way we could have taken this trip without a support team extraordinare. You cannot just drive away for two months without someone to watch over your world. We had the BEST someone to stay at the house, keep Felix the cat happy and healthy, deal with the inevitable power outages and surges, water my plants, work on his book and films and liven the neighborhood with his drumming. Adam, we thank you sincerely!

The highlights of our trip were the time we spent with far-flung family and friends who, because of their distance, we rarely get to spend relaxed and quality time with. It meant so much to be able to do that.