Packing for Adventure

The obvious choice for site seeing in Detroit would be the various Ford-related museums and tours. I had pre-booked certain parts of this trip prior to presenting it to Chris, but not the Ford museums as I wasn’t sure which one Chris would want to see. With only one day, we couldn’t see them all.

Turns out Chris didn’t want to see any of them, which was quite baffling to me. He loves seeing car shows, and he loves Top Gear and The Grand Tour. I wasn’t devastated to skip it by any means, but I would have appreciated the historical aspect of it. I mean Henry Ford revolutionized American industry!

Without seeing Motor City’s main attraction, tourism was tricky.

Not that any of that mattered- our flight from Chicago to Detroit was delayed by six hours. We spent more time in the Chicago airport than I probably will the rest of my life!

It made us question our decision to fly from Chicago to Detroit to begin with. We considered taking a train or using a rental car. The pricing for the three options was close, with flights being the most expensive. But the major advantage to flying was that it saves 3-4 hours over the train or driving. With already limited time, flying was the best option.

We had pre-booked a rental car to pick up at the Detroit airport. We picked a rental car in Detroit for the same reasons we drove a rental car around Chicago.

With the six hour delay on our flight, we may as well have taken a train and saved a few bucks! It would have been much less miserable than waiting around indefinitely at the airport! What was originally going to be a half-hour delay kept getting longer and longer. Anyone who was flying through Detroit as a layover caught different flights. We attempted getting alternate transportation but were ultimately unsuccessful.

Getting Around:

When we finally landed in Detroit, we went to pick up our rental car. The rental car agencies are not conveniently located within walking distance like some other airports and we had to take the airport shuttle to get there. We were very disappointed to find the line going out the door! We had already been delayed six hours. We had already paid for the rental though. So as we were in line, I was calling Priceline to cancel the rental car and get a refund. It took about 45 minutes, and by the time we were done, we’d barely made any progress in the line.

So at this point, it’s already late afternoon. It’s a good thing we hadn’t booked a tour for any of the Ford Museums as we would have missed it. We took an Uber from the car rental agency to Shield’s, and from there we walked to the Detroit Main Library.

Sight-Seeing:

Detroit Main Library

It is the biggest library in Detroit and has some beautiful murals on the second floor. But those beautiful murals were inaccessible. I never quite understood why… the second floor had been closed since even before the Covid lockdowns. I guess maybe the elevator was broken or something? Isn’t that what stairs are for??

I tried to peer up the stairs as far as my neck could crane, but could see nothing. I hear it is open now if anyone is in the area, tell me in the comments what you think!

Burton Historical Collection

So we tried to see the Burton Historical Collection which is on the other side of the library. But they had just barely closed when we got there. Google reviews showed pictures of the beautiful murals, and after the disastrous morning we’d had, I was determined to see it! I hunted down a library patron, who very kindly hunted down someone with keys to the collection. I mean, they’d only closed a few minutes ago!

They got their keys and confusedly let us in for a few minutes.

There were definitely lots of books! Mostly historical documents and family journals that have been collected over time from what I understand. People go there to conduct research. Some documents are open to the public, many are not.

No murals. I had spoken with passion and zeal for books and learning and after the hassle I had caused, I had to pretend to be amazed! I do have a genuine passion for reading and learning, but I really wanted to see the murals.

Where We Stayed:

That was it for site seeing. We’d already had a really late lunch, and now we were taking an Uber to Buddy’s for an early dinner, and then off to our hotel near the airport – the Comfort Inn.

Original Plan:

If our day had worked as planned, we would have driven in our rental car from place to place. We would have stopped at either the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation or the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant Museum because why not? Since we arrived so late and it wasn’t exactly a bucket list item for either of us, it was the first to get cut. After lunch at Shield’s we would have seen the Detroit Main Library and then headed over to the Financial District, specifically the Guardian Building and the Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

From there we’d get dinner at Buddy’s. We maybe would have had a second dinner at the Detroit Style Pizza Co. Pizzeria, but a third pizza meal wasn’t an ironclad plan as St. Clair Shores is further away from everything else we were doing. Since we were relying on Ubers and each drive starts to add up, we cut a lot out.

Detroit was sad to me overall. I am sure it was once a thriving place and it’s clear to see that time has not been kind.

Next up: New York!

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