Holy, Toldeo!

We woke up this morning on Catawba Island, which really isn’t an island its a peninsula. Its a beautiful small town on Lake Erie in Ohio. Its got a definite orient feel. There’s a ferry that takes people to a couple of different islands off the coast, so there is lots of free overnight parking. I don’t know how we got lucky and stumbled upon this place. We headed to Toledo, OH (an hour drive) on a backroad. We had “Bon Iver” playing loud and we took in the scenic road. This is what I pictured when I used to fantasize about the road trip. This back Ohio road hugged the north coast and the lake. We got to see some real gems like a drive thru bait and tackle and a nuclear power plant. After this short drive we entered “The Glass City. Toledo is obsessed with glass and glass making. I guess when your a small city you gotta claim something. They claim to be at the center of early and modern glass making. When you are on a trip visiting many cities at once you tend to stay away from the things every city has like Museums, Zoo’s, and Aquariums. You have to try and find what sets it apart, and go see that. So we went to the FREE Toledo Museum of art where they have a glass pavilion filled with glass. The building from the outside looks pretty rad. Floor to ceiling glass panels curve around the entire exterior. Inside is filled with really cool artistic modern pieces of glass art and Historic functional glass items that date back to the 1st century! It blew my mind that they were able to create intricate glass stuff as far back as then. Some of the early work is so rad that you swear there’s no way it was made when Jesus walked the earth. Glass is mad old! From here we went to Tony Packo’s, Toledo’s most famous eatery. Hot dogs- famous delicious hot dogs that rival their Coney Island counterparts. On the walls of Packo’s are hot dog buns signed by famous people. Because its located in Toledo and not NY, the most famous of celebs was probably Bill Cosby and Jerry Seinfeld. A lot of the names I didn’t recognize, so I’m guessing they were either old people or athletes. Shout out to Chelsea Clinton for making the list though. I got the M.O.A.D (mother of all dogs) , which turned out to be a foot long that was 4 hot dogs in one, covered in chilli. its was delicious but I could only eat half. There was a lot of fat people in Packo’s as well as a large gay crowd, which made for an interesting and confusing experience. We drove through downtown on our way towards Detroit. We witnessed a reoccurring theme: a metropolis with not many people around. Which is weird to me, I thought all cities are filled with people. Isn’t that the point? Now I understand why when people come to NY they complain about it being crowded, Because the cities they live in are empty and they pretty much run that shit. They’ll be the only one on a 4 block city radius. They must feel robbed when the come to New York. Like the only child that now has to share his crayons when he goes to school. It was gay day in Toledo, hence the population at Packo’s. There was a pride parade. We drove past a parking lot where they were getting ready to launch the parade. It was a small crowd, but we beeped our horn anyway. They just seemed kind of confused. Although some of them cheered. We drove an hour north to Dearborn, MI just outside of Detroit to “The Henry Ford.” (Fancy name, I Know) it was already 2:30 and it closed at 5. You could easily spend all day here, they have plenty of attractions, and its not just cars. It’s more of an Americana museum. They have factory tours, a museum filled with American relics from furniture to cars to gameboys, and a village that claimed to represent 300 years of America. We only had time for the museum. It was a cool museum but half of it was under construction, and we had to move at a pretty fast pace. I didn’t realize how awesome this place was gonna be or else I would of gave it a full day. It would of been kind of neat to explore all of Americana this early into our American trip. Next we drove into Detroit with the intentions of driving to some of the shittiest parts to get a feel for how broken Detroit really is. We pussed out. After doing research on the ipad as we drove down a growing desolate and desperate street, article after article reading “you could easily be killed just driving through this neighborhood” we succumbed to the pressure and chickened out. We just did a quick drive through downtown and some surrounding areas and got a small taste of the Motor City. I’m kinda disappointed but the fear was really real at the time. We did see some sketchy shit, some of the worst I’ve ever seen, but I’m sure Detroit has a lot worse to offer. From there it was another afternoon of Improvising. Jillian did her first, and maybe only, 20 miles of driving, while I figured out our plans. She did a wonderful job and looked adorable doing it to boot. We decided to do our first rest stop, just outside of Ann Arbor, MI. It’s Amazing! There’s food, bathrooms, free overnight parking, and best of all, pay showers. For 12$ you can shower in a private bathroom, with all the amenities (soap, towels, hair dryer, etc). To be honest, It’s better and cleaner then any place I’ve showered in in years, including home. After my shower we decide to go into Ann Arbor to see a movie before bed. We went to this cute little independent theater and saw “Another Earth” (check out the trailer) Its was great. Off to bed.

Next stop: Lake Michigan

-Ricky