Last Friday was my birthday. My wife packed our bags that morning and told me we would be going out of town.
Well, 5pm or so had come around, and she fessed up to having nowhere in particular in mind. So we got on my phone and started looking for the cheapest plane ticket out of Denver for that night, just for giggles. Turns out, it was DTW. Hmmm. After some debate, and going back and forth as to whether we could or should leave for the weekend, we bit the bullet, bought the tickets, went home, grabbed our passports, and made the 8pm flight with only a few minutes to spare.
We got to DTW
a bit after midnight. I hadn't been to DTW since 1993 (twice), and never left the airport either time. My only other experience with Michigan was lunch in New Buffalo in 2012 (also with my wife, which was her only previous MI experience).
Anyhow, we got our rental car, drove out to our hotel in Madison Heights (which tbh, I didn't know where that was within metro Detroit
), and went to sleep.
We purposely got up early in the morning (even after the late arrival), as I wanted to see some sort of nature. We drove out to Lake St. Clair Metropark in Macomb County.
^Mutant leaves off some of the trees out there.
From there, we drove out to Pontiac to see the Silverdome. When I had learned that it would be demolished next month, I couldn't bring myself to skip seeing it. It was on this drive when I realized just how sprawled metro Detroit is....wow, it reminded me of Phoenix!
After that, we had fuzzy plans to be in Windsor for lunch, so we headed back down towards the city. My brother insist that I get pics of the 8 Mile area for him (
), so I did.
While on 8 Mile Rd, we noticed a Detroit Police car that ignored the stoplights. I thought that was interesting.
From there, we drove around the city.
We ended up just short of downtown and turned back to go east on I-94. After seeing all ^that I was (and I hope nobody takes offense to this, as I am aware of the history)
thoroughly angry and sickened. I've seen blight like that before (Gary, IN, most notably), but in Detroit it is on a whole other level.
Knowing it is there, and actually seeing it are two very different things. I couldn't understand how anybody could be okay with or accept something like that, especially in a country that prides itself on being "the greatest country in the world".
So by going back east on I-94, I thought by doing so I might as well make my feelings worse, so we got off on Cadieux Rd and drove towards Grosse Pointe. Mack Ave south/west of Cadieux Rd particularly disgusted me (the readily apparent visuals of the two contrasting cities and the little geography that separates them). Sorry, but just gross. Glad I experienced it though, pretty eye-opening stuff.
We went downtown to the Rosa Parks bus station (which was an experience in itself), and waited for the tunnel bus to Windsor. We were there about an hour, as it seemed like it skipped us a time around. Seeing downtown from the bus was nice, and it was very pleasantly busy last Saturday (some sort of nerd convention going on
).
Upon getting to the border, I felt like the Canadian border guard asked us a few more questions than he needed to (
) (he even joked about how nobody vacations in Detroit
), but we got in, and headed straight for the riverfront park for more pics of Detroit.
We had lunch, played poker at Caesars Windsor, and headed back to Detroit pretty late. The American border guard only asked us where we were from and pretty much waved us through (right after giving a Hispanic woman in front of us the nth degree {I don't think she was Canadian or American}).
We drove down to Toledo late Saturday night (
Trip to Toledo), and drove back to metro Detroit on Sunday evening, went to Meijer, ate, slept in Canton, and got up early Monday morning for our flight back home. We were greeted by a half-dozen stray cats when we left the motel in the morning.
Some little anecdotes:
-Metro Detroit/SE Michigan has the BEST drivers I've ever experienced ANYWHERE. You guys nudged out the state of Oregon for my personal top spot. You guys use the left lane CORRECTLY. You don't drive too fast, nor too slow. It was awesome and a pleasure.
-People are leaps and bounds nicer than the people here in Colorado. I did encounter some unfriendlies at Lake St. Clair, but overall everybody was pretty awesome (including the folks over in Windsor).
-Gas was expensive compared to CO. Food was a ton cheaper (including restaurants). The plethora of cheap housing is also very appealing.
I don't know when I'll get back there, but I actually can't wait to get back and do more. We didn't do any of the touristy stuff I thought we would/could, so there is plenty more for us to do when we do go back.
Til next time Detroit!