I finally get around to visiting the Motown Museum.

Well, the cold front has moved through, and it's a lot cooler. It's about 50° outside this morning, with a high in the upper 60°'s. Cloudy, but no rain in sight for the next few days. I've stayed the extra day to hit the Motown museum. Wow, I'm doing my usual drive down to Starbucks on I-94, and it's cold. I'm glad up upgraded to my jeans and polizie sweater.

After a nice coffee and breakfast sandwich, It's time to head into Detroit, and the Motown Museum. One of the things that I'm liking about Detroit, is that traffic isn't too bad, and it never seems that it takes too long to get anywhere. 10 minutes later I arrive at the museum.

One of the pics I downloaded, they had it hanging in the studio.

It's a great tour, and it's a lot bigger than you think it is. Easily an hour tour. But like the Ford Plant tour, no pictures. You're just have to go and see it for yourselves.

Time to do some shopping for supplies and for home. I'm really surprised to find one of my favorite soups.

I tried it once because the "soupman" is the basis for Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi". After you try it, you realize the soup is really good. So for the past couple of years I've stocked up on it when in Buffalo, NY. The last couple of times it hasn't been in stock. 4 container's later, I'm happy.


Time to head back to the motel and relax and watch some tv. My vacation is almost over. Since it's going to be cold tomorrow morning, I'm trying to get ahead of things and pack most of my clothes on the bike. Also I want to go over the bike and check the tire pressures. They are all a wee bit low. I forgot that I needed to replace the 12 volt plug on the air pump. It's easily done in less than 5 minutes. I bought all the parts in Vegas, I just didn't get around to replacing it. 20 minutes later the bike is ready to go.

I'll get an early start tomorrow, first to miss traffic in Detroit and at the border. Plus I want to do the Lake Eire ride. I've done most of it, just not the part around Windsor, ON.

Daily mileage 47 miles - 75 km

Total trip mileage 2500 miles - 4023 km

Another day, another part of Detroit.

So today I'm back to the Henry Ford museum. To do the F-150 truck plant tour, and see Greenfeld village. The first was closed for retooling when I was last here, and thunderstorms stopped me going to the village. First though, is a stop at Starbucks for a coffee. Are you wondering on how the instant Starbucks is standing up? It doesn't really taste like the Pikes Place I buy at the store, but it's still miles ahead of the motel coffee. So its a keeper. Then I head over to the Henry Ford museum and the Rouge plant tour.

The tour was great. The only problem is

that you can't take any pictures :-). To see

a working plant putting together the F-150

was cool. For some pics hit the link below.

Rouge Factory tour

So back to the Henry Ford museum, and the Springfield village. Henry Ford built the village to save a lot of old, historical buildings. 

Being Ford, you have lots of early vehicles driving around. Want a ride in a model T? No problem.

That's right, the Heinz empire started right here.

The village has buildings from the 1600's up to the 1930's. Lot's of live recreation's. Lot's of walking. So if your going to come to the Henry Ford Museum, do it in the following order. 1. Factory Tour, to beat the crowds. 

2. The Henry Ford Museum. 3. Greenfeld village. On a nice day, you can knock all three off, but if you can't, do the first two.

Since I've got some time, I'll head up to "Hard Core Pawn". It's up on 8 mile. South of 8 mile is dodgy, north of 8 mile is nice. So you get customers from both sides of the tracks (or mile). 

I had a good look around, there were a few things that did interest me. But in the end I walked out empty. Though that Rolex Submariner really interested me. None of the " Stars" were about, but its a nice shop and I visit again. I know what your asking, there were no fights or arguments happening when I was there.

Hardcore Pawn

I head back to the motel. Since the weather is going to hold for the next couple of days, I decide to stay one more day. The Motown museum is closed Sundays and Mondays, so everything is coming together. Well I go online to check out the rates and they've gone up. I head down to the front desk and see what they can do. No problem, as they give me the same rate and extend me one more day. Now to catch up on two days of blogs.

Daily mileage  54 miles - 128 km

Total mileage  2453 miles - 3935 km

Detroit, Detroit, and Detroit.

I'd just to like to thank the previous guest for locking the in room safe. Before calling the front desk, I'd thought I would try a few of the easy codes. One of the one's that I tried is 1234. Guess what, it popped open. Funny, but still annoying. So now I have a few days to relax and not drive somewhere, so, a vacation from a vacation ;-). With it being Sunday, The Henry Ford Museum is closed,  as well as, Hard Core Pawn. No problem, as I'll head over to the east side of Detroit. Lucky for me its "flower day" at the Eastern Market. It's a big thing down here.

 Finding parking wasn't easy, bit I got lucky.

Some of Detroit's finest, but where's RoboCop?

Must be good, a long line.

1000's of people, all having a good time, and a good mix of shops. I'll be picking up some kafta kebobs when I get home.

I've never seen a lottery truck before.

What says Detroit better than Bert's, those ribs looked really good. Same again, a really long line.

Just a nice view of Detroit from the market.
I also got a nice Americano. After looking around, its off to the Heidelburg project. This is where they took a block of abandoned houses and made a art project out of them. Unfortunately, some of the scummier members of society think it's fun to burn these homes down.

Is Detroit as bad as everyone says, probably. You see the urban decay, but its not everywhere. It is strange to see buildings just abandoned and decaying. From big office buildings, motels, stores, just about everything you can think of has been abandoned.

Now on to Grosse Pointe. There's just something about that shot of when John Cusack is driving into Grosse Pointe that always wanted to do, that same drive. If you have money, Grosse Pointe is where you live around Detroit. The really big houses/mansion's are on Lakeshore, which is what Jefferson ave turns in to.

Not quite the sunny day drive, like in the movie.

There's many of these lovely homes, one after another. Time for a coffee and into Grosse Pointe farms. A nice little small town feel. Even though the movie was filmed in California, you can see its pretty close to Grosse Pointe.

I decided to head back to the Eastern Market to grab some lunch, that great lobster Mac & Cheese. But the backup into the market started on the off ramp of I-94. So sorry, no Mac & Cheese for me :-(.


So, I'm off down the road to Ford's first plant. The next pic explains the history.

Urban decay, a huge abandoned plant.

These cars were all hand built at one station and took about 10 hours to assemble. Even early model T's were done this way at this plant.

Total loss oil lubrication. Which means once past the crank the oil went on the road. Must had been fun riding a early motorcycle down the street.

Early stators for the ignition system. All windings were done by female hands.

Lots of early ford history that I didn't know.

A really nice early Mustang.

After assembly, they drove around a test track, and if they kept running, they where loaded on the train for shipping.

A good day and I got most of the East Detroit places I wanted to see.


Today's mileage  80 miles - 128 km

Total mileage 2399 miles - 3849 km