Cincinnati to Detroit

This morning I drove North to cross the border into Michigan. Detroit shares the Detroit river, which opens up into Lake St. Clair, with Canada. Further North, where I will travel later this week, they split Lake Huron.

For some reason the hotels in downtown Detroit were inordinately expensive, so I ended up at the TownePlace Suites in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit. However, not all TownePlace Suites are created equal. The one I stayed at in Cincinnati was new, clean, centrally located and staffed with pleasant, helpful people. The same brand in Dearborn is the exact opposite. The woman checking me in became belligerent because I showed up before 3 PM, the formal check-in time. She said that she did not receive my request via the app for early check-in because they were renovating. Hunh? I did not want to make the situation worse by inquiring what renovations might have to do with receiving information via the app. I will say, however, that this hotel could definitely use the renovation - though I saw no direct evidence it was actually happening. In spite of her protestations to the contrary, she actually did get me a room pretty quickly.

The next issue were the two packages that I knew had been delivered. First she said she had no packages for me - I guess no one had made notes in my reservation on the computer. Even when she checked the closet, she first insisted I had no packages. Fortunately it was out in front so I could actually see what she was doing. I quickly identified and retrieved my packages - one of them marked with “checking in on 8/13.” I have no idea if she is truly incompetent or just lazy, but it was not a pleasant first experience in Michigan.

There is nothing much of particular interest in Dearborn proper, but I also didn’t want to completely waste the afternoon, especially in a less than stellar room. So I drove out to Ann Arbor to see the Michigan Theater and Graffiti Alley . The alley is like all of the others I have seen - interesting for the fact that a couple of blocks of walls are covered in graffiti, but actually too dense and obvious to provide much in the way of abstract opportunities. The Michigan Theater is a historic building, originally built in the 1920s. It was “modernized” at one point, but then restored at one point to its original Art Deco grandeur. The architecture and decoration are impressive. The only challenge was the dim lighting; it was not worth running back to the car for a tripod, so I made do with high ISO shots that can now be nicely rescued by the new AI denoise function in Lightroom. Ann Arbor, by the way, seems to be a happening place. Of course it is a university town, but also has a very vibrant downtown scene.

Tomorrow I will visit the Henry Ford museum which is, conveniently, located in Dearborn a few miles from my hotel. That may explain why it is alway full as the Ford museum is a tourist destination.