Roadtrip to the People Mugger!!

Of course when you get a new car, you tend to want to use it, and Jenny thought we should go downtown to the RenCen as Lyn missed it on the boat ride. We stopped by the dealer to drop off the old title. Jenny was under specific instruction to not talk about or look at other cars. I still had to retrieve her.

We drove by old stomping grounds and could see changes, in some cases better since previous visits. We stopped at Belle Isle.

Located on an island in the Detroit river it was once a beautiful park with about a 6 mile long loop. It was turned over to the state in '13 and now a state park. They have a Gran Prix race on the wide road, and the fountain is beautiful. There is the Detroit Yacht Club and a museum and all the other sorts of things one would expect,  but few people while we were there.

We continued downtown. We made it to Greektown and the clouds opened up literally. Jim dove into one of those garages with the circular ramps and headed up in case of high water. We also parked there. By the time we got to the street, it had stopped but water everywhere. We found a Greek restaurant to eat some Moussaka.

Jenny's plan all along had been to tour downtown Detroit on the people mover. there are 13 stops on a train that loops around downtown. Fare is 75 cents per entry. We got off at the RenCen and walked around in the 4 story lobby. They were renovating part of it, but still impressive. About three quarters of the towers are occupied by GMs Global Center. Turned out the renovations were for the automobile display area. It's right at the Detroit River so we walked out there and wished we were millennials so we could work down there and live in all some of the condos/old houses that are left and very trendy now!

We drove up Gratiot which looked better, and visited the folks grave sites. Then drove through some neighborhoods. In that area maybe 1 of 10 or less of the houses still existed, and in various condition from burned to good shape! It's something you have to see, to even partially understand what has happened to a city that used to be 1.8 million people and now is under 700,000.