Seriously, what day is this? Nineteen states, one District, and four timezones later, I'm woefully behind on keeping everyone apprised of my galavanting. I had every intention of doing contemporaneous updates as I drove across the country, but the time allotted for that quickly evaporated. So let's catch up.
The day after leaving Cedar Point we swung up to Detroit, Michigan to take a gander at America's urban graveyard. I've been to Detroit on a community service trip before, but Tad has been yearning to visit for a long time so I indulged him. He has a soft spot for castaway cities. I'm not sure what a full weekend, or even lifetime, in Detroit would look like, but we packed in a lot of variety into our one day there. By that evening, Detroit had squirmed it's way into our hearts with its decrepit charm.
The day began gloriously: chili dogs for breakfast! Detroit has an odd obsession with Coney Island and Coney Island style hot dogs. Every block, there are vacant buildings and at least one busted looking Coney Island hot dog spot. We did some research and went to what was reputed to be the best one, Lafayette Coney Island. We were unabashedly the only ones in the joint eating chili dogs and fries at 10am. I don't want to be a traitor because I love Ben's Chili Bowl in DC, but this was a great chili dog. The dog couldn't beat Ben's half smoke, but the chili was superior.
The one thing I knew I wanted to do for sure was visit the Motown Museum. I didn't know what to expect, but this turned out to be my favorite part of the day. I was impressed, in equal parts because our tour guide was so awesome and because the house was so well-preserved in the face of the riots and economic destruction that the city has seen. But it was also inspiring and kind of eerie to stand in the very garage that Berry Gordy turned into a recording studio that changed the music world. We were standing in the same spot, preserved for all this time as it was, where the Temptations, the Supremes, Edwin Starr, Stevie Wonder, Little Richard, and the Jackson 5 had all recorded and sang their way to greatness.
From Motown, we ventured outside of Detroit city limits to Farmington Hills to visit the best arcade ever. Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, discreetly tucked away behind a suburban strip mall, makes Dave and Buster's look like a crack house and going to Chuck E Cheese sound as fun as playing Big Buck Hunter at the front entrance of Wal-Mart. Most arcades follow the same formula and their greatness is usually defined by the level of variety and scuzziness. Marvin's really thinks outside the arcade box. Dimly lit, with manequins, lighted signs, and other crazy crap on the ceilings and walls, it was fun just to stare up at it all and spin around the room. They had your usual arcade games: Time Crisis, skeeball, Pacman, DDR, race car games,
lots of pinball. Yet, whoever Marvin is apparently also likes collecting antique fun-house style, kitschy macabre or satirical mechanical wonders from England. Drop in a quarter and see wooden puppets recreate an execution. Fifteen cents to see a puppet sex change. The best were the interactive games. My favorite was a machine that was once housed in the Tower of London prison, which tested your fright factor with fake razorblades and rats attacking your hand. Have your fortune told by a Chinese puppet, watch a drunk puppet vomit, and let a fake spider make you shriek by jumping out and tickling your palm. Arcade's will never be the same for me.
After Marvin's, we headed to Alinosi's, home of the best Spumoni ice cream...or so I'd read. When I was a kid, I used to love ordering Spumoni in Italian bakeries simply to see the brightly colored layers. Now, I've come to really appreciate the flavors that come together. A combination of rum raisin, chocolate and pistachio ice cream form layers of an ice cream brick, with servings sliced thin like an all-ice cream cake piece. If trafficking of ice cream bricks ever became its own drug trade, I'd be the first mafioso on that frontier. Alinosi's ice cream was awesome! For preservation purposes, they sold their Spumoni in the store in scoop form instead of slices, but it didn't detract from the flavor. If not for the lunch that was soon to follow, I would have tried a sundae too.
 |
Don't be deceived by its appetizing
meat. This sandwich will steal
your soul. |
For lunch, we went to Slow's Barbecue, which was the only really disappointing part of my day. Not only did I ruin my appetite for the Kansas City barbecue that would follow on our next stop, but it also did a number on my digestive system. I ordered a brisket sandwich, while Tad ordered a pulled pork with cole slaw sandwich. Any idiot can make good pulled pork, which is why most barbecue places have it. So his sandwich was great. I was belligerently confused when I bit into mine. My brisket was an unnecessarily fatty mess with a frighteningly bizarre onion marmalade condiment and the most god-awful shredded gouda. Just thinking about that sandwich now makes me gag. I tried to give it a second chance and continued eating. With each bite I got sadder and angrier. A perfectly good cow wasted on this. This food had so much potential until some bumbling chef came up with this half-assed concoction. The worst part was that the sandwich had a lasting effect on my stomach and my barbecue psyche...like a brisket hangover. I'll just say my appetite is still not back with its usual vigor, and I avoided disaster and frequent stops during the 13-hour car ride the next day by sleeping and keeping Pepto and baby wipes at the ready.
 |
Bowling at Garden Bowl,
a few blocks from
Comerica Park |
I fought through a terrible stomach ache to finish off the day with bowling at a bowling alley that had been open since 1913 (because apparently no business would dare open in Detroit since the 50s), a visit to a dive bar (where thankfully PBR
was not their hipster beer option), and taking in a Tigers baseball game (with a spectacular view of buildings, many vacant, in the Detroit skyline).
Some of the rumors about Detroit are true. Driving into downtown on a workday morning seemed eerily easy for a functioning city with tall buildings and almost a million inhabitants. Where were all the office workers? The streets were wide and empty, and there were many areas that did feel like a ghost town. The old train station was a burnt out shell of it's formerly majestic self, but still an architectural remnant of and testament to what the city once was and could have been. Old Victorian manions stood boarded up on vast lots that had regrown native prairie grass. It requires a little hunting, but there is enough to discover in Detroit that makes it a city worth visiting and a history worth saving.
 |
| Old train station |
 |
| Signs of what once was |
 |
| Signs of new life |
The day after leaving Cedar Point we swung up to Detroit, Michigan to take a gander at America's urban graveyard. I've been to Detroit on a community service trip before, but Tad has been yearning to visit for a long time so I indulged him. He has a soft spot for castaway cities. I'm not sure what a full weekend, or even lifetime, in Detroit would look like, but we packed in a lot of variety into our one day there. By that evening, Detroit had squirmed it's way into our hearts with its decrepit charm. 
The one thing I knew I wanted to do for sure was visit the Motown Museum. I didn't know what to expect, but this turned out to be my favorite part of the day. I was impressed, in equal parts because our tour guide was so awesome and because the house was so well-preserved in the face of the riots and economic destruction that the city has seen. But it was also inspiring and kind of eerie to stand in the very garage that Berry Gordy turned into a recording studio that changed the music world. We were standing in the same spot, preserved for all this time as it was, where the Temptations, the Supremes, Edwin Starr, Stevie Wonder, Little Richard, and the Jackson 5 had all recorded and sang their way to greatness. 
From Motown, we ventured outside of Detroit city limits to Farmington Hills to visit the best arcade ever. Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, discreetly tucked away behind a suburban strip mall, makes Dave and Buster's look like a crack house and going to Chuck E Cheese sound as fun as playing Big Buck Hunter at the front entrance of Wal-Mart. Most arcades follow the same formula and their greatness is usually defined by the level of variety and scuzziness. Marvin's really thinks outside the arcade box. Dimly lit, with manequins, lighted signs, and other crazy crap on the ceilings and walls, it was fun just to stare up at it all and spin around the room. They had your usual arcade games: Time Crisis, skeeball, Pacman, DDR, race car games, lots of pinball. Yet, whoever Marvin is apparently also likes collecting antique fun-house style, kitschy macabre or satirical mechanical wonders from England. Drop in a quarter and see wooden puppets recreate an execution. Fifteen cents to see a puppet sex change. The best were the interactive games. My favorite was a machine that was once housed in the Tower of London prison, which tested your fright factor with fake razorblades and rats attacking your hand. Have your fortune told by a Chinese puppet, watch a drunk puppet vomit, and let a fake spider make you shriek by jumping out and tickling your palm. Arcade's will never be the same for me. 
After Marvin's, we headed to Alinosi's, home of the best Spumoni ice cream...or so I'd read. When I was a kid, I used to love ordering Spumoni in Italian bakeries simply to see the brightly colored layers. Now, I've come to really appreciate the flavors that come together. A combination of rum raisin, chocolate and pistachio ice cream form layers of an ice cream brick, with servings sliced thin like an all-ice cream cake piece. If trafficking of ice cream bricks ever became its own drug trade, I'd be the first mafioso on that frontier. Alinosi's ice cream was awesome! For preservation purposes, they sold their Spumoni in the store in scoop form instead of slices, but it didn't detract from the flavor. If not for the lunch that was soon to follow, I would have tried a sundae too. 
I fought through a terrible stomach ache to finish off the day with bowling at a bowling alley that had been open since 1913 (because apparently no business would dare open in Detroit since the 50s), a visit to a dive bar (where thankfully PBR was not their hipster beer option), and taking in a Tigers baseball game (with a spectacular view of buildings, many vacant, in the Detroit skyline). 
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