Saturday 16th.... Back at Tim and Debs at Novi which is about 30 minutes out of the cbd of Detroit. We took off to the City of Detroit to have lunch in Mexican Town, what a gorgeous little corner of Detroit City, we had an authentic Mexican lunch at Los Galanes and of course a pitcher of margarita, it was delicious. Then off to the Detroit River Walk to catch a one hour boat cruise along the Detroit River, the river flows west and south for 24 nautical miles from Lake St Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes. It was a great way to overview the city of Detroit and on the other side of the river is Windsor in Canada. We thoroughly enjoyed it taking in the Ambassador Bridge which separates USA and Canada, also saw the fire fighting boat on the river, as Tims Dad was a firefighter in the day and was actually on this boat in the early days of his career and Tim as a kid used to sit down on the grass near there. Also a cute little mail boat which delivers mail along the river to freighters and boats
coming and going out of Detroit and it has its own postcode, very unique, the only one of its kind in the world, another great day finished off with a party at Tim and Debs nieces home for the retirement of her husband, it was great to meet Tims family members and it was like a big garden party.... such a bunch of people on a beautiful balmy night in Detroit.
Sunday we had a lay in and a yummy cooked breakfast by Deb, then we took Tims car and off to the Great Lakes factory outlets, Costco and Total Wines and More before heading to friends of Tim and Debs for early Sunday dinner, another great bunch of people, lots of laughs, magnificent roasted steak with all the trimmings, fine wine and Bridget was the consummate hostess, feeding about 14 of us.... another great day in Michigan.
Monday Tim lent us his car again and we spent the whole day at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village all on the one block of land but two separate attractions. Where do I start, it was magnificent to see, even if you are not interested
in cars, it is a whole lot more! The majority of buildings in Greenfield Village have been moved from their original places and bought to be reconstructed in the village. Every single one had a story and of who lived there and where it came from. Huge area of approximately 80 acres, we arrived early as soon as it opened so missed a lot of the crowds later. A lot of the village was focused on Thomas Edison who was a prolific inventor who had 1093 US patents including the light bulb and the phonograph. You can take a bus, T model ford or steam train around the Village. The museum is housed in a lovely art deco building and has lots of different cars the Presidential cars, all models of cars, caravans, campers, aeroplanes, power engines, old generators, whole display of farming equipment some of which we were familiar with. You could spend a couple of days here really but we managed to get around most of it. Back to Tim and Debs for a yummy BBQ dinner and a few wines and fell into bed.
No 2 and Lori, invited us to join them on Cass Lake on their boat for the afternoon which was so much fun and the weather was hot 30 degrees and a bit humid but with a lovely breeze on the water it was perfect! Cass Lake is just wonderful and is within the suburbs of Detroit only a 30 minute drive from Novi, where he has his boat stored in a private boat club, just need to give them 30 minutes notice and they take it from the storage shed and have it waiting in the dock to take off! Cass Lake is huge covering 1280 acres and is surrounded by beautiful homes and even more gorgeous tiny little cottages from back in the day that are still standing. We had a great afternoon, loaded up with beers, snacks, fruit and prawns, stopped in the shallow part of the lake for a swim and did the whole circuit of the lake, back to dock leaving the boat to be taken out of the water and to the change room to get changed.
