With my concerns out of the way, I thought about the positives. Saving a bunch of money is a big one. And we love Canada. Windsor is Canada's southernmost city, which makes it inherently awesome to visit. And there's no better view of the Detroit skyline than across the river in Windsor. Steve and I agreed - two nights at the inexpensive, but perfectly nice
That first night, we had an uneventful crossing into Canada. The border
guard asked where we’d come from and where
we were going, why Canada was involved, and if we were meeting any
Canadians. He had us roll down all windows, checked our passports,
asked about weapons and other contraband, and sent us on our way.
Five minutes later and we got to our hotel. Easy.
We had a great night's sleep and woke up earlier than expected. We were headed to
The Henry Ford, about 15 minutes away. It didn't open for well over an hour, so we decided to visit the riverfront in Windsor. Steve and I were thinking 5 or 10
minutes to take photos of the Detroit skyline and the Ambassador
Bridge. But the park was fabulous and had
a really cool linear sculpture garden, so we had to check it out. Each time I thought about turning around, there was another fabulous sculpture just a little bit farther...
We finally dragged ourselves back to the car after 45 minutes. Even though we would have happily spent much more time walking along the river, enjoying the beautiful weather, the statues, and Detroit's skyline, we needed to get going. We would need every minute to explore as much of
The Henry Ford as we could. We were only 13 miles away, so we'd arrive right as it opened! Perfect!
Well, not exactly. We crossed the bridge and waited in
line 10 minutes for customs. That was annoying, since we’d breezed through
Canadian customs the night before and we were eager to get going. But it turns out that the 10
minutes we spent in the car waiting in line was nothing compared to
the 40+ minutes we spent in the US Detention Center. "Why," you may ask, "would the deRosiers, who are US citizens carrying US passports and Steve's Global Entry card, be detained trying to return to the US, where they had been not 12 hours earlier, after having done nothing in Canada but sleep and look at sculptures?" That is an excellent question, and one we waited 40 minutes to find out.
But I'll start at the beginning (a very fine place to start). When we drove up to the customs agent, he asked us the usual questions ("Where have you been? Where are you going?"), scanned our passports and Steve's card, then did some typing. He asked if we’d
ever reported our passports lost or stolen. “No,” we said. He asked again, and our answer didn't change. “The computer flagged you,” he said, as he slapped a
large orange sticker on our windshield. We were asked to drive to an
enclosed area, leave everything except wallets and passports in the car,
open the hood, trunk and doors, and leave the keys, and then we were
escorted into the detention center.
There were a good 40
people in there, the vast majority holding foreign passports. We had to sign in, then wait. I would have loved to have a book, or my phone, or even a scrap of paper and a pencil to pass the time, but none of those were allowed. It goes without saying that we couldn't take pictures. I don't know if we would have been allowed to use the restroom. Fortunately, that wasn't an issue.
Finally, our names were called. After a lot more questions (including asking again if our passports were ever reported lost or stolen), quite a bit of computer
typing, and rescans of our passports and Steve’s Global Entry card, we finally learned what the problem was. It turns out that Global Entry numbers are not linked
to passport numbers, but instead have their own series of numbers. There is a glitch where when someone
reports a passport number lost or stolen, it flags the Global Entry
number as lost/stolen. So Steve was trying to enter the US with a
valid passport and a ‘stolen’ Global Entry card. Once they
figured that out, we were escorted out and back to the car. And then
we were on our way.
You have to take a bus to get there; no private cars are allowed. Our group arrived 30 minutes before the
assembly line shut down for lunch, so we were able to see everything
in action. The next group didn’t. It was one of the best factory
tours I’ve ever seen, and I've seen a lot of factory tours. It was so interesting watching such a huge assembly line, starting with basically nothing at one end, then ending up with completed cars at the other. Each worker only has a minute to do their job on the piece in front of them before it moves and another piece comes. No photos allowed, unfortunately, though they rarely are during factory tours.
After touring the line, we watched two movies, one
about the history of Ford and one about innovations and the future of
Ford. Photos were allowed in the lobby area.
The bus brought us back to the main facility, then we entered the
Museum of American Innovation. Our first stop was lunch. There are three restaurants on-site. All sounded tasty, but we wanted the most unique and memorable experience, so we chose
Lamy's Diner, an authentic 1940’s
streetcar diner moved into the museum.
The food was delicious and came very quickly.
As you can see, we shared another float. Like the one at Buddy's, this was also made with a local beloved soda we'd never tried,
Faygo Rock & Red. It was amazing. We want to try all the flavors now.
We were in and out of Lamy's quickly, which we appreciated. At this point, we had 3.5 hours before the museum closed and it was apparent we'd need every second of that to see everything.
The
1952 Weinermobile. I always wanted to see it when I was a kid, but never did. I finally saw one driving down the road a year or so ago.
It's hard to pick a favorite exhibit, but I think mine was the presidential cars through the years. It was fascinating to see how the security of the vehicles changed over time. The first ones were just open carriages. Can you imagine that now?
Trevor liked all the hands-on exhibits best.
When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler. Yikes!
Our family had a fantastic time at The Henry Ford. We stayed until the very last minute and would have stayed longer if we could. All three of us were blown away by the museum. We wish we could have seen
Greenfield Village, but that just gives us motivation to return there someday!
We headed to midtown Detroit for dinner at the highly-recommended
Traffic Jam & Snug. They have their own bakery, brewery,
and dairy onsite, as well as a rooftop garden.
The food was fantastic.
Of course, we had to try the desserts from their in-house bakery. Fabulous.
I'm happy to report that crossing into Canada that evening was easy, and that entering back into the US the following morning was equally uneventful. We were sad to leave Michigan so soon, but excited to head to our next state, Ohio. Tomorrow I'll tell you all about
the fun we had in Toledo and why you should visit The Glass City.
