Sugar High

Ken and I met up with Mark this morning and headed down to Greek Town to visit Mark's favorite place in the city: Astoria Bakery. Oh. my. goodness. I had a cheese danish that was SO good, and then I had a mini Key Lime pie, because I can't pass up Key Lime pie! The cheese danish was so huge that by the time I finished with everything, I was almost overcome with the sugar rush. I rarely eat that much sweets! It was so cool to share that with Mark, because I could tell how much he loves the place. The pastries...the cakes...wow. (Yes, pictures were taken. Please be patient while we are under construction, or at least out of town. :) Parting is such sweet sorrow, and it made me sad to say farewell to Mark. I look forward to our next meeting...and it should be interesting to see where that will be!

We drove around downtown for a bit, then headed a little out of town and got into some of the "urban blight" area. It made me so sad. I told Ken that it made me feel down driving through it, so what must it be like to grow up in it and be immersed in it every single day? One of the many things we talked about with Mark was the sad demise of so much of this great city. All in all, I felt it was a positive experience, and they have done much to renovate and renew downtown...but what about those who live in other areas? I'm sure I'll have more to write about this after we get back home. It's a fascinating subject to me, and although Detroit isn't the only city to go through this (Gary, in my own state, springs immediately to mind), the effects have been very profound. I'm hoping that I got some good pictures of the old Cass Tech high school (Is that right? And who mentioned going there? Was it Mark? Someone mentioned it recently.), which looks abandoned and forlorn, but is still a beautiful building architecturally. The new school is built right next to it, but the old structure remains. Why am I so fascinated by old, abandoned buildings?

We're in Monroe now, and spent a couple of hours at a place at the harbor before we could check into the hotel. It is mayfly season by the lake, and we watched with amusement as swallows dived and plucked the mayflies out of the air and off of the windows. It was a smorgasbord for the swallows! An employee went out and revved up a leaf blower and blew all the mayflies off of the windows. They quickly began to settle back on the windows...and all over the poor guy's T-shirt. Ugh! Ken said that lots of mayflies are an indicator of a healthy lake. I said, "Well, that is one healthy lake!"

We'll head over to Bill and Mary Sue's house in a little over an hour. Oh, Alaina, we were planning on visiting the place you recommended! But when we got on the road, 75 South was closed, and we made a big loop, getting onto 275 after we'd passed Hamtramck. We didn't have an atlas with us to find an alternate route. I was bummed, because it sounded neat, and I thank you for the recommendation! Perhaps next time. If you and Mr. Mischief go soon, I'll look forward to seeing your pictures! I love the description of it...that the way the elements of the installation play in the breeze is part of a kinetic artwork. Very cool.

Maybe more tonight, but if not, we'll be back at Nutwood tomorrow. This has been a very fun trip, and I got to see some sights that I had not seen before. I'm always happy when that happens!