Inventors, creators, those that imagine.......

It is really good to get away and see new things.  Ken and I were talking about all of the amazing things that we have seen that are just a short car ride away from our home.  It is really to bad that more people don't look for these places!  This trip to Detroit and the Ford Museum was certainly one of those great places to visit.  We got a packaged deal on our first day there that included all of the different attractions.   We had not planned to tour the Ford Rouge Factory, but it was included in our package!  We were both so glad we saw this.  I did not know anything about this place and I was quite surprised!  We actually got to watch the assembly line and saw Ford F150 trucks being put together.  They have made the entire factory complex very eco friendly.  The most amazing thing is that Henry Ford bought that 2,000 acre piece of land for $1,000.  He knew that it had direct deep water access, train access and also plenty of workers nearby.  Really an incredible place to visit.

This is outside of the building since photography was not allowed in most of the building!  It was a morning well spent.  In the afternoon we toured the actual Ford Museum.  There were lots of cars (of course) but there were many other exhibits also.  An entire section was devoted to trains.  There was an entire wing on air travel, including some Wright brothers items.  And there was a large section of American History.  We saw things like the chair from Ford's Theater that Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot.  We saw the actual bus that Rosa Parks made her famous stand in to not move to the back!  And we spent a lot of time looking at items from each decade from 1900 to now.  There was an entire wall of telephones!  There is a lot of Thomas Edison items, including his actual laboratory and some very early light bulbs.  I loved this quote I saw on the wall....

It is easy to forget how important electricity is to our daily life.  And it is easy to forget how important the love of God in our hearts is!  What a great reminder.

As you most likely can tell, we really enjoyed this trip.  Driving around Detroit was interesting, however.  They have some very odd (at least to us) traffic patterns.  For instance, on most of the main roads you can not make a left hand turn at the corner with the traffic light.  You have to go beyond the intersection and make a U turn and then make a right onto the street you wanted to travel.  Let me tell you it looks and sounds really silly on GPS!  And on those very rare places that you can make a left with a turn arrow, you don't get a green arrow you get a flashing yellow arrow.  You can proceed and make your turn when the traffic allows.  It made me wonder how people from other countries handle all of the crazy traffic things that are different from state to state.  In all fairness however, we live within a mile of the craziest intersection in the entire state of Illinois!  It is something called a "divergent diamond".  It took them over 3 years to build this crazy thing (and it was not very nice during those years trying to drive through the construction).  All I can tell you about this mess of an intersection is that you end up driving on the WRONG SIDE of the road and there are cars coming directly at you when you are stopped at the traffic light!  We are just waiting for some poor out of town person who can't figure out which way to go, causing a major accident.  

Ken and I were talking about the amazing inventors of that early 1900 time frame.  Ford, Edison, Wright Brothers, Bell and many others.  And we were comparing them to the "inventors" of  our times.  People who thought about things like "personal computers" and "cell phones" and the Internet.  What amazing creativity and innovation have blessed our everyday life.  Here I sit, on my comfortable chair, with a very small tablet computer, accessing a WORLD WIDE WEB with my everyday thoughts and musings.  Not connected by any wires at all.  Yes, it is amazing.   It gives me great pause to consider what my grandchildren will see in their life times.  

I am convinced that we humans are able to imagine and invent far more things than we ever see imagined or invented.  We are created in God's image and He was the first "inventor" and "imaginer" so to speak.  Seeing just a small snapshot of how far we have come in just 100 years makes me more sure that the best is yet to be.  I believe that we can encourage our children and grandchildren to think outside of the box.  We have to stop doing long enough to just IMAGINE!  We need to let our kids be kids and play and explore so that they can imagine new things.  I know that there are many inventors and creative thinkers out there among our kids.   Most of all we ourselves need to believe that we can be creative.  

We drove most of the way home today in some pretty strong thunderstorms.  We were thankful for the short distance and the lack of any heavy traffic.  We had planned a couple of other stops along the way, but given the rain, we took a pass on them.  We will leave those places to another weekend away.  And that is not such a bad thing!  Something to look forward to!

So be encouraged tonight.  Close your eyes and imagine.  Let your mind and your thoughts flow.  Encourage each other to create!  Do some crafts.  Color some pictures.  Dig in the dirt and play in the rain.  I just know that there are some terrific new ideas out there just waiting to be "imagined" and "invented".  I think I'll go now, and do just that!   Happy thinking!

Jesus, thank you for the reminder that our creative spirit comes from our Creator Father.  Help us all to believe that we can bring new things to life.  Holy Spirit help us to encourage our children and grandchildren to walk in new ways with your purpose and destiny in their spirits.  Thank you for time away and the joy of coming home.  Amen