Brrrrrrrr

You can click on any of these pictures to make them a little larger.

Just as I was thinking things couldn't get worse with all the weather dipping into the thirties and some places into the double digits around home, I got that call from the office in St Louis.

"Got a job for ya," says Steve.

"Oh, where to?" I asked.

You could almost hear the smile on his face when he said, "Sterling Heights............Michigan." That would be a bedroom community of Detroit.

My brain temperature dropped about 10° just on the announcement, alone.

Anyway, long story short, I'm here in the frozen tundra for a few days....hopefully, not weeks or heaven forbid, months.

So for the first weekend here, I took a trip over to Windsor, Ontario. With temps down around 12° early Saturday morning I took the tunnel and took a ride south along the river on a parkway. The river had a nice flow to it and the giant frozen ice chunks bumping into each other reminded me of a cold winter decades ago when ice flows made it down to Louisiana and you could hear the noise from the Vicksburg/Vidalia bridge.

Venturing out east of town, I rode along the countryside by fields covered with snow. The roads were straight and in squares so it reminded me somewhat of the prairie and farm lands of south Louisiana except they were totally white with snow.

Not being able to speak Canadian, and not sure that I would be getting much of a deal on my U.S. money, I elected to turn back around after 20 miles or so and come on back to the U.S. via the bridge, after picking up a few souvenirs for the smallest grandchildren.

It wasn't much of a trip but at least I satisfied the curiosity regarding the hassles of international border crossings. It really wasn't much of a big deal and involved no more than the gate keepers on both sides asking me why I was crossing, did I have any alcohol, tobacco or firearms, where I was from, what I did for a living and how long my visit would be.

Cold as it is, far from home as it is and missing everyone, it's still good to have a job when some are not working. Besides, I was being way too blessed staying home cooking and eating too much.

Day 2; Sunday, January 10, 2010

When I got up for breakfast this morning, it was 3 global warming degrees outside.

I'd always heard of Motown and now I've seen it and it took what I thought was forever to get me out of it too. At the heart of it was the Motown Museum where they even had to have bars over the windows and doors and gang scribbles were the only examples of fine art to be seen.Yep, right there on Barry Gordy Avenue.

Downtown Detroit is showing some signs of life even on a Sunday afternoon. There was this little circle area that had a public skating rink in it where some people tried their luck at staying up on two feet. I saw no need to risk breaking another bone (like I did trying to climb a mountain in Oregon) and never considered renting skates. I did see some folks hit the ice HARD and they'll remember it tomorrow.

Another highlight of the day was a tour through Mexicantown. Yep, they have one of those too but still wonder why in the world they'd want to come to this ice cube. Apparently it's been a part of the city quite a while. There are a number of streets that bear Spanish names. One particular way I knew I was there was the guy who thought he was a bullfighter standing in the crossroads of two four lane streets. He stood in the middle, waving the cars by and barely being missed by oncoming traffic from both directions. I thought, surely he was going to get run over but eventually joined a buddy on the corner much to the relief of the drivers. I don't know what he was on but whatever it was made him 100% bulletproof.....car proof too.


Snow was still deep (probably 6-8 inches) and I did some walking in it but after a few minutes, the novelty wore off and I crawled back into my car and found my way back to the hotel.