Detroit Days 0-2

 

Day 0: nondescript flight from SFO to Detroit. Lead attendant makes announcements at 1.5x speed.

Check-in: After midnight at the Westin Bonvoy, there's a discussion about having reserved a room with bathtub. After a short while the clerk upgrades us to aa lovely junior suite. Good news since we have 6 nights here. THB gets good night's sleep, and his phone is still in airplane mode to he thinks it is6am Detroit time...nope, 9am!

Day1: Meet up with E&J prior to tour starting. Bruch at a diner in the hotel, yet it is not connected to hotel. It is halal, so no pork products. Four sets of 3 large pancakes each, not sized to our age demographic. With slow service, tip, one coffee, one side of vanilla yogurt, $68 for two. 

what's new in Detroit from 12 years ago 

A great visit to the Flint Institute of Art wit E&J. The four of us in a compact UBER car to and from the hotel. We get to know our drivers' dreams and gig economy jobs. 

Some photos from the visit...many lost as THB fumbles through the download process. LESSON: don't delete until pics are moved to blog. 

top of the line ceramics 

glass pieces perfectly displayed, art looks great

Day 2: the tour starts, meet-up at the Marrott hotel where most of the tour members are staying, a short UBER ride away from the Westin. We would walk...hmmmm, it is only in the 30s here this morning.

Stop 1

purchase #1: a mug from this product line

another tour member has a backpack from SLC line

Stop 2: Suzanne and John Stevenson's house and studios

there  daughter Tara next to artwork

a first: welcome speech while it starts to snow

you can't see it, snowing on way back to bus

Stop 3: EMU, Eastern Michigan University

they go by "E"

E hasn't updated their depts signage yet

last award winner?

snowing again on way to bus

Stop 4

still waiting (not tour members)

THB goes to take/see the leak in the skylight...melted snow  falling thru skylight

BIG puddle btwn door and urinals,  pic doesn't show the puddle, it is real

Stop 5

Peter Beaseekeer not his best work!

Stop 6: this tile place is over 100 years  old, and we were here 12 years ago

Stop 7: Dinner at Andiamos...fortunately we not eating at Joe Meus

Andiamo's

Dinner is included with tour cost. THB has steak and potatoes and a pre-game local brewski. We are sitting with NCECA Board folks, and a fun night  was had by all at our end of the table.

Book Review

The Nights Are Quiet In Tehran, Shiara  Bazyar (read by Anoushka Rava, Darna Haqjoo, pub’d 2025, translated by Ruth Martin): THB found this audiobook on the Booker Prize nominees for translated books. Only a few were turned into audiobooks, and this one is fascinatingly current. Three generations of Irani revolutionaries are faced with demanding regime change, and nothing changes (i.e., they do not get “democracy”) and revolutionaries go underground (literally and figuratively). Oh wait, we are now in a fourth period of demanding regime change, and it appears nothing is going to change. Highly recommended, very much curet

pic of the day? no idea whaat THB was doing here....