Posted by: Steve Hemmingsen - 11/03/2009 12:00 AM
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Today our economy is looking up because things aren’t falling as quickly. Tomorrow, who knows? If you want a good gauge of where our country has been, the top of the mountain, I suggest a visit to
There are company towns, like Lead, 
The
There’s the biggest steam locomotive I have ever seen, that I have ever stood next to, designed to haul big loads of coal over the Allegheny Mountains.
The Allegheny locomotive and coal tender weigh 600 tons. I weigh somewhat less.
There are airplanes, if not the real thing, precise replicas.
And there are more cars, including what is possibly the most expensive car in history, a rare Hispano Suisa that the museum docents…retired Ford workers…fire up for parades from time to time. 
The Rosa Parks bus that lit a fire under the civil rights movement is here someplace.
Charles Kuralt’s last “On The Road” RV is here, a 1975 model powered by a Chrysler engine. The odometer has to include some miles across KELOLAND; Crazy Horse and Korczak, a bill ball of baler twine in western
Word has it that the sculpture and the wordsmith spent a couple of convivial days before getting down to work on that story, and that for one moving shot of the monument-yet-to-be the photographer was pulled in a kids’ coaster wagon. Don’t know if it’s true, but it makes good lore.
I’m a museum breezer, I don’t spent a lot of time reading every word, every statistic, but I’m still in this one building for three hours. I ponder the two hour tour of the famous River Rouge plant where they make F150 pickups, the most popular truck on the road. I sit in my Chevy Silverado and ponder a trip through the legendary
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