Well, anyway, in the basement last nite and all loaded up.
I headed across I-86 to Erie in a pretty hard rain, but after that, it didn't exactly clear up, but it was down to an occasional spattering most of the rest of the day.
The first stop of the day was the National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo, OH. This wasn't all that easy to find, but it was interesting. They have a nice visitor's center with a short film clip about shipping on the Great Lakes and a number of nice exhibits, mostly about shipwrecks. (There have been about 8,000 known shipwrecks on the Great Lakes.)
Among the artifacts was a small piece from the Edmund Fitzgerald:
Not exactly sure what it is, but it's a soundings board (?).
The main attraction at the museum was the Great Lakes Steamer "Colonel James M. Schoonmaker", which was launched in 1911 and remained in service until 1980. She is over 600 feet long and they had a nice self-guided walking tour of much of the vessel. You can get a sense of the size of this ship:
Anyway, it was pretty cool and you could tour the hold, engine room, crews quarters, wheelhouse...just about anywhere on the ship. I enjoyed it.
After that, I headed west on US6 to one of my favorite little cities, Auburn, IN. Auburn is home to the Auburn-Cord-Dusenburg museum and the National Automobile and Truck Museum, both of which are housed in the two remaining buildings of the Auburn Manufacturing Company. I'm saving the ACD Museum for tomorrow, but the NATMUS museum is also very interesting. Here are a few pictures I took today:
A 1932 Auburn:
A 1929 Cord:
A 1907 Stoddard:
And this beauty, a 1958 Chevrolet Impala:
Had a nice ride today, even with less-than-ideal weather, and tomorrow I'll be in Auburn for part of the day and then up to South Bend, IN for the rest of the day. Hope you enjoy the pics!
Miles today:377
