Vroom-Vroom...The Motor City & More Michigan

We're down to blogging the last two weeks of our journey "around the world". That's including our four day stint in Detroit and Ann Arbor. Detroit might have a bad wrap but we really dug it!

Good old Henry Ford has his name all over this city. In his honor we went to The Henry Ford Factory and Museum which was wonderful. We also ran into a pretty major issue after leaving Belle Isle Park as we headed to the Motown Museum but more on that later...

On our first night in town we had the pleasure of meeting one of Brad's oldest and dearest friend's son and his girlfriend for dinner. Steve Lehman and Katya are going for their Masters and PhD at the University of Michigan. What a great dinner we had. Catching up on their lives, laughing, and sharing stories . Their company was a true treat we thoroughly enjoyed.

Steve and Katya came back to the Rv after dinner so we had the opportunity to show them our "home away from home". Two wonderful young adults with an outstanding future in their headlights. We were so happy they shared time with us old folk.

One of the coolest parts of the Detroit stay was the Henry Ford and the factory tour. You would think that these Ford Factories would be producing all these different cars. Nope! This Ford Rogue Factory only produced F-150 trucks. Yes, and all the other brands and variations of Ford 150 truck were produced here. The automation, the syncranation between human and machine was just unbelievable how precise and synchronized it all was. The only down size was you couldn't take any pictures or videos during the factory tour. Toyota, Chevy or Dodge, among others, could be watching.

You would think the Henry Ford Museum would be all about cars but it wasn't. This museum was much-much more. Yes, it had Fords but it had everything that Henry Ford was interested in. From early 1900 cultural throwbacks, full-blown locomotives, Industrial Revolution automation, a huge Julia Childs exhibit, glass artwork, classic furniture and classic cars of all kinds including some Ford Presidential Limos. It was substantial.

The next day we took our bikes to Belle Isle Park which is surrounded by the Detroit River and Lake Michigan. It was a stunning and a different kind of park. It had magnificent and huge sculptures throughout, plus the James Scott Memorial Fountain, and great water views on both sides. We met some cool people along the way too and enjoyed the ride. Brad loaded up the bikes and we were off to the Motown Museum.

Take a good look at that last picture of our bikes above. It will be the last time you'll see any pics of our bikes together for the rest of our trip.

When we got to the Motown Museum, Brad went to make sure our bikes were locked on the back of our car bikerack. Ut-ohhh, Kathy's bike was gone! We had to do a double take. We weren't sure if it was stolen off the back of the car, if Brad left it off at Belle Isle, or, if it fell off the bike rack. We took the 45 minute drive back to Belle Island after talking to both the local and state police. We got back to the Isle and met up with two state troopers whom assist in supervising the park. We told them our story, and decided to backtrack our drive to the Motown Museum. Thirty-five minutes into our drive back we got off the exit and there was Kathy's bike. On the side of the exit ramp, completely destroyed, run-over, obliterated! Thank goodness we only have 11 days left to our travel:0(

Brad dragged it off the side of the highway and left it for dead. We called the state police and told them we found it so they didn't need to keep a lookout. Ugly...with a Capital UGH!

We had no choice but to try and get over the disappointment. We toured the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor next. It was a pretty university. A city within a city. We did this little tour in our car. First stop was the "Big House" (their football stadium that seats 107,000). We couldn't get in so there are some perimeter shots of the largest football stadium in the country below.

The football stadium didn't look that great from the outside cause we later found out 3/4's of it is below ground.

If we went to an Art Museum in every town or city we could have visited fifty of them. We broke down and went to the ........ museum at UofM.

Steve and Katya recommended Collect Beer Bar so we went. Without exaggeration we circled the block 4 times before we found the joint. Our one and a half armed beertender was accommodating and we met a beer aficionado from Cincinnati whom we hit it off with. Kathy's second was a Miller and a shot of Four Roses for $4...Happy Hour. And speaking of circling the block four times, we did the same thing when chasing the Monument of Joe Louis (Heavyweight Champion of the World) and the Ford corporate offices.

We have to hit Lake Erie before we finish our tour of the Great Lakes. That's our next stop. We're down to our last week of our 660 day journey. Thanks for reading down this far and for following our journey. Much Love, Kathy and Brad