Explored Woodbridge for a bit. It was overcast and rainy but not all that bad.
Found the post office, library, and a place to develop some film. I got some digital photos made for free at CVS and it turns out they also make great postcards. The library was not terribly exceptional.
I found this building while I was searching for the post office.
Later I went by Cass Cafe and had one of their lentil burgers, which are quite delicious. Met up with James there later and he became consumed by the internet.
We eventually did some cross town biking in the sleet and that was fun. Cold, but fun.
12/1
Today had some notable accomplishments. A plan a man, panama. No but we actually got a bit of an itinerary together and did some stuff.
Goal one was to procure some coffee, so we visited La Petite Zinc, a cafe we had previously visited on the day of Belle Isle.
Then a quick browsing of the Dry Goods store for some rain gear, gloves, and long underwear. I did not purchase any of these things; I should have at least gotten some gloves. Then a short stop at the Post Office for James to mail a flashlight back to Caitlin, our host in NYC. This is where I discovered that I had somehow left the memory card to my camera back at Erin's or something. Thus I just adjusted the resolution to 5MP instead of 10. Not that it's really noticeable.
A small run through the Salvation Army store did not find me any overall or gloves.
I can haz subs & salads?
Quickly we ran around the corner to our highly anticipated destination, John K King Books.
This place is gigantic. It is four stories high with approximately 100+ rows of shelves per floor. All of it is used and many of them are first edition. I wanted to find either some Gabriel Garcia Marquez or 'Kavalier and Clay' by Micheal Chabon. Alas, no Chabon, and all the Marquez was 1st edition and thus $30+.
I did find some sci-fi anthologies for about $2 total, and when I was attempting to check out I noticed a big stack of old stereo-photo cards. I got a good one of some stalagmites.
Labyrinth level 1, section 10
Eventually we made it out of John K King's by 5pm. We decided to go to Hammtramck which is a small town within Detroit, to the north west side of town. I had noticed a fun looking greenway trail called the Dequindre Cut Greenway which used to be an old railway. Along the way we got to go down the Detroit Riverwalk, but went about a mile too far and had to turn around to find the Dequindre Cut.
Eventually we made it there and grabbed a bite to eat at this restaurant called Three Star BBQ. We got some rad polish porter's and some sammiches. Hammtramck seems to have a large polish population.
We were planning on meeting up with our friend Alx of Ann Arbor who was going to be doing some karaoke at a bar around the area but we had gotten there wayyyy to early. So we hung out there (The Belmont) and played pool until the festivities began.
There were shenanigans and such late into the evening.
Hall & Oates "No Can Do"
Someone showed up around last call with a bag of candy. This is the result of an unattended drink.
A Christmas tree we stumbled upon later
12/2
The idea was to leave at 12 but this was evidently not going to happen. James and Alx had carried on with shenanigans late into the evening while I had gone back to the casa around 3am.
We eventually regrouped around 4pm and left Detroit at 5.
The drive to Chicago wasn't all that bad. We made it there by 10pm.
The place we're staying is called the Roxaboxen/Minicastle and is populated by quite a few former-Ashevillians.
A good evening overall.
