Summer of Detroit

Alicia and I biking on Belle Isle

A few years back Alicia and I decided to have a summer of ice cream. We weren’t necessarily planning to eat more ice cream than usual, but we wanted to branch out a bit and try places we hadn’t previously considered. We stuck to the greater Ann Arbor area, trying Kilwin’s, Washtenaw Dairy, both Stucchi’s, and Dairy Queen, as well as the notable Ice Scapes - a fabulous place for soft serve and Italian ices located inside an old Jack-in-the-Box building. I learned yesterday that Ice Scapes is apparently now closed, and mourned the loss for a few moments. At any rate, we had a great time - we had a lot of fun exploring Ann Arbor and we both love ice cream. This summer, we have another plan. We’re hoping to have a summer of Detroit. We both grew up in the Detroit metro area, and have been going to events (sports, music, theater, etc) downtown as long as we can remember. There are things we haven’t done though, and places we haven’t explored that we’ve been talking about for years. Don’t let anyone tell you there’s nothing to do in Detroit, or that it’s dangerous. There is, and it’s not! Spending lots of time at the DIA, visiting MoCAD when they have new exhibitions, shopping at Eastern Market, looking for new places to eat, and riding the bike routes in Detroit are all things we’ve talked about doing, but often in the middle of the week in the middle of winter when we have neither time nor daylight in which to do any of them. This summer, we’re doing them all.

We started a few weeks ago with a bike trip around Belle Isle. I’m pretty out of shape, so it had to be a fairly gentle ride, making Belle Isle the perfect destination. It’s pretty flat, gives a lovely view of both Detroit and Windsor, and is only about a 5-6 mile loop all the way around. We did it twice, and then had a picnic lunch on the river. The park was designed by the same person who created Central Park in NYC, and all of the buildings are beautiful. It’s clear that there isn’t enough money going into the city - the zoo is closed and some things look a little shabby - but it’s a nice ride and the bathrooms seemed much more well-maintained than the guidebook would have suggested. Making sure our summer of Detroit was off to an awesome start, we headed to the (relatively-) newly redesigned DIA to check it out. It is, as all previous reports have indicated, wonderful. They’ve moved things around, arranging them thematically in a way that makes sense to someone without an art history degree, and added lots of informational placards that narrate the entire experience. I really enjoyed it, and am hoping to go back soon. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer holds…