Asia Awaits: Detroit, Michigan

Next on our travel itinerary was Detroit to visit our neighbours from our time in India, Sheila and Ed. How lucky are we to have met and made such wonderful friends while living overseas, and now have the opportunity to visit them all over the world ??

The ride to the airport was a somber affair as we had to say our goodbye's to the Dickinson’s - I swear Alison is plotting for a way to get Mike transferred somehow to Connecticut! Our early start began at LaGuardia airport, which is by far and away the worst airport we have ever seen to try and get a simple coffee and breakfast – and we lived in India !! They rely on self scanning bar codes and it's a freakin disaster. We made it to Detroit which was a new city for all of us and we were greeted by Sheila and our other friends, the Bailie’s in a HUGE GMC Bus! We went and did the Ford Rouge Tour of the production facilities for the Ford F-150 which was really interesting and a great experience for all, could have watched it for hours - but just as happy that we weren’t part of the production line crew.

The boys loved Ed and Sheila's place as it had huge open spaces for them to run around in and indulge in their new love for baseball.

Sheila and Ed showed us around downtown Detroit and it was fun seeing a new town, the weather was a bit wet however. We went to Belle Isle and the boys couldn't get over that we could see Canada just across the river. Very hard to understand for a kid from Australia that other countries are a short drive away. We checked out a few cool buildings like the Ren Cen which is the GM head office, the Joe Louis monument of the fist and even saw some artistic pothole maintenance Ed's cousin does. Our plan for the night was to see, yet another, baseball game – Detroit Tigers v Houston Astros. When we got to the ball game Ed had arranged for front row seats just past the first base for us but no matter how much the boys hoped for a foul ball to come our way it didn't eventuate. It was the highest scoring game of baseball I'd seen and made for an entertaining night which was capped off by a massive fireworks display on the field post the game.

Unfortunately, our luck with the weather ran out as it was overcast and raining the next morning, but eventually it cleared enough for us to take Sheila's cousin Jody's boat out for a spin on White Lake. It was so weird to see this huge body of water that we were going to have a great day boating around and swimming in, would be frozen solid in 6 months time!

As is our way, I found a unique way to see a different view of Detroit with a photographic tour of some of the abandoned buildings. So we set out early in Sheila's Camaro and joined the bus tour around an abandoned school, hospital, church and warehouse. It was quite interesting, especially some of the areas of Detroit we got to see - in the daytime! I will include a separate blog of the photos I took.

Our trip to Detroit was fabulous and was so great catching up with wonderful friends. We are already wondering how we can catch up with Sheila and Ed in the near future.