Ball Game in Detroit

Sunday, Sept. 23

The Field After We Left the Tunnel

I had the alarm set for 7:00, so we wouldn't sleep too late, and when it went off, Dawn and I showered and were ready to go just after 8:00.  We knew it was only about an hour's drive to Windsor, but had no idea how long it would take to get over the border into Michigan.  As it was, there was no wait, and after talking with the border guard and getting some directions from him, we were there.  The tunnel comes out just a short distance from Comerica Park, and within 5 minutes of entering the US, we were at the Stadium.  Well, this was far too early, so we decided to drive around and find someplace to eat.

Like Seattle and Vancouver, the big stadia are built in the old part of the city centre, and this part of Detroit was pretty old and run-down.  There were many derelict buildings, and many homes in quite disrepair.  It was quite sad to see them because some of them looked like they must have been quite nice places at one time or another.

We didn't come across any places where we felt comfortable stopping to eat, so decided to head back toward the ball park to find a restaurant.  On the way back, we came across an IHop, and decided to stop in there.  It was busy and quite full, but we got right in.  Not a bad place, and not a bad brunch.

Then, off to the ball game.  We took a few pictures on the way into the park, and then a few of the field, once we got in.  It is a nice looking park, and our seats were in the seventh row along the third base line.  Dawn was excited because Miguel Cabrerra was playing 3rd base for Detroit, and he was about 20 metres from where we sat.

Miguel Cabrerra

The game was pretty good for the first 5 innings.  Detroit had scored a couple runs, but in the 6th inning, the roof fell in.  Minnesota seemed to be able to hit anything pitched to them, or Detroit could not keep from making a pile of mistakes.  By the end of the 6th, Minnesota was up 5-2.  It kept going that way, with Detroit using lots of pitchers, and giving up lots of runs.  The final score was 10-4.

Then it was off to drive back to Chatham.  We thought we would like to try going back over the bridge, rather than through the tunnel.  However, I went the wrong direction, and even though GPS Jill was giving constant direction to change direction and go back where we had come from, I thought she was just trying to get us to go to the tunnel, so kept going.  Eventually, we decided to go back and find the tunnel to go through.  As it turned out, the bridge was on the other side of the tunnel, so we never would have found it going the way we had been going.

We knew we had to go past the entrance to the tunnel to get to the bridge, so that is what we decided to do.  However, when the highway split, I took the wrong split and couldn't get back to the correct one, so we thought we would just go through the tunnel.

Once back in Canada (Windsor), we felt we were hungry and began looking for a McDonalds.  Dawn was putting Red Lobster into the GPS, but she wasn't having any luck finding one.  As soon as I saw a McDonalds, I pulled into the parking lot.  I decided to try one last time for Red Lobster, and we found one that was 7 km from where we were, and we decided to go there.

Once there, we were able to get in very quickly, had a great meal of "endless shrimp" and were very full when we left.  Then, setting the GPS for Shirley's place, we were back there in just less than an hour.  It was to bed, shortly after that.