Saturday, May 25, 2013

MICHIGAN

After Chicago, we had a long haul ahead of us until our next destination ---> Canada! It didn’t take long to get to Ann Arbor where we ended up spending most of the afternoon. Strongly recommended by my Wolverine Alumni friend, we picked up some sandwiches at Zingerman’s Deli and grubbed as if we had been living out of a car for 10 days. Delicious! Thanks for the samples, Zingerman’s! And thanks for the iced coffee that came with a verbal warning that the effects would be not unlike those of crack. Seriously, thanks. The cracklike effects came in handy around Somewhere, Ontario several hours later.

We made our way to the University of Michigan campus and quickly found ourselves in the Museum of Art. We spotted some Picassos and observed an eerily alluring holographic installation by Laurie Anderson. We returned to the car and much to our good fortune found NO parking ticket!! Horray! (This was the second time [Omaha was the first] that I entirely forgot to pay for parking for an extended period of time so the moment was a bit exciting.) We got back on the road and made our way toward Detroit…

As we had done in all other cities until this point, I took a close look at the map and found a route to detour through the city. The plan was to cruise through downtown, see the Detroit sights and peep in somewhere to take a wiz or like, buy gum. Well, I stubbornly did not get gas in Ann Arbor because, you know, I wanted to use up as much gas as possible so that I could fill on empty and therefore postpone our next gas stop - to think we had made it this far with our logic is truly a wonder... So, here we are approaching Detroit with the gas light on. We're searching around for a gas station and the first two places I stop at have totally busted pumps and pay stations that probably haven't been greased since the 00's. The search persists. We are not finding any gas and seem to be going further and further into a direction that will never lead to our afternoon delight. Finally, we find a gas station with fully functioning and free flowing fuel. We regrouped and reassessed - the quest for gas had ended up taking over an hour and turned into a perilous black hole odyssey. We got back on some highway to see that the next exit was 9 Mile Road. And then the next exit was 10 Mile Road. Yup, our dandy Detroit detour led us to 8 Mile. The time was now 5:30 PM EST (blast! the time had changed again) and rush hour traffic was not at all rushing. We had hours to go until getting into Toronto so we let go of any hopes for our Detroit detour dream and got the heck out of that place!

Overall...Ann Arbor was really cool. I'd give Detroit another chance just as soon as I catch my breath from the whole gasoline/detour fiasco, whenever that is.

Oh yeah, we also drove through Indiana, but just for a bit.












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