A day in Motown ( Detroit) , July 7

After yesterdays marathon museum tour, I suggested that maybe we all should take it easy and enjoy a short day and explore a few of the highlights of Detroit, so we headed out fairly early in the morning with the intention that we would avoid the heat and  would be back mid day to rest up for Greenfield Village the next day.

Our first stop was a the AAA office where I need to get some  up to date maps of some of our future destinations.  The AAA office also offered free parking in a nearby parking garage...at least while doing business in the office. Parking averages $18.00 for eight hours.  We also asked about some of the highlights in the down town area and the People Mover.


Model of down town Detroit.  Detroit really is trying to reinvent itself.

Our first adventure was on the  monorail, known as the Detroit People Mover. It  circles the city for $.50 which is a great deal, and stops at 13 different stations.   You can go around as many times as you want for$ .50 as long as you don't get off. The People Mover is towards the bottom of the picture.

From the People Mover we all got a good glimpse/overview of downtown Detroit.  Some not so good, like the one below of all of the graffiti on vacant buildings.

But we also got some classic views of the city.

 We  rode on the monorail  and  continued the full circle  and then some, and on the second go around got off at Greek Town. Greek Town was not what I thought it would be.  It's a casino with lots of shops nearby and as far as I could tell only encompassed one short street.

From Greek Town we walked down to the water front to explore the big round building which dominates the skyline, and which is the General Motors Corporation  headquarters. The building complex is also called  Renaissance Center.  It turned out tours are given of the building and we were just in time! It was very interesting and free!

The building from the water front side.  The half circle at the bottom of the photo is the Winter Garden, a huge atrium where people can gather and eat lunch and socialize.

The "Borealis" tallest vertical glass sculpture (the green glass) is featured in the  main lobby.

The structure is round  and the interior very interesting with all of the  exhibits of the current car models.

The glass pathway circles the perimeter

The tour included a glass elevator ride up to the Coach Insignia restaurant located on the 72nd floor of the Marriott Hotel portion of the building. It is a posh restaurant where reservations need to be made well in advance and only open for dinner.  The only way you can see the restaurant during the day is on the tour. Joel and I took advantage of the giant chairs in the restaurant lobby  to rest a moment.

The views from the top were spectacular.  We could see Windsor, Ontario where we had been a few days ago.

We could also see Bell Island and the Detroit water front.

As we continued with the tour we saw these guys. No, they are  not acting like spider man.  They are  actually standing on the sky light supports, at least one of them is,  and doing maintenance. I don't think I would want their job!

After the tour of the GMC we enjoyed our bag lunch in the GMC atrium  known as the Winter Garden and then  we walked down to the  water  front and saw a tall ship.

The walkway continued on to Hart Plaza, which contains several sculptures and water features. The sculpture below is known as the Freedom Sculpture.

The main water feature in Hart Plaza. Sort of looks like something from outer space. ...

This broken circle greets you as you drive into down town Detroit.

Now, if you watched this year's  Super Bowls, you will recognize this fist featured in some of the recent GMC commercials, and classic symbol of Detroit.

Another shot of the GMC building

Then we continued back toward the heart of downtown to the Americo building which houses a beautiful water feature. Maynard was really infatuated with it.

The day was really warm so we stopped at Cadillac Park and watched the water fountain dance.

Well, this was suppose to be a short day which turned into a long day.  We didn't return to our rigs until almost dinner time.  Tomorrow we will hit the ground running if we want to see all of Greenfield Village. I'm thinking I'm going to need a day off pretty soon.  Gotta love this life!!