Day 1: Chicago to Grosse Pointe, Michigan
Distance: 279 miles
On the radio: “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” Gordon Lightfoot (1976)
Highlights: The first leg of my journey takes me to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where I spend the night with a college fraternity brother and his family. He’s a generational Grosse Pointer, and the perfect guide to this historically affluent area just north of Detroit. We drove along the coast of Lake St. Clair, south of the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House, to the Grosse Pointe Club, which has been around since 1923. Here, naturally, I was treated to a cruise on a classic Chris-Craft motorboat (Launch 28 Heritage Edition). Still totally iconic, but not made of wood anymore, this U.S. brand was bought by Winnebago Industries in 2018. We motored south toward a revitalized downtown Detroit. Along the way, there were new condo towers, parks, a bike trail and several crazy octagonal floating Tiki bars (see Aloha Tiki Tours), where patrons pray they stay in the no wake zone. Back at the Grosse Pointe Club, there was a poolside, land-based tiki bar, where I met an attorney who had just moved to Michigan after three years … where? No way! None other than my home town Village of Terrace Park, Ohio, where we have some mutual friends – and similar gossip. The uproar among the blue hairs around the pool today was whether to offer a summer membership to a couple that might have been (gasp) unmarried. One vowed to get to the bottom of it: “Their story just doesn’t add up. We need to Google them!”
Where’s the funny? Start here:
#1: ALWAYS keep in touch with friends who live in beautiful places, even if there is an abundance of red-winged blackbirds (aka “Nature’s a-holes,” for their relentless attacks on anyone who is anywhere their nests, including unsuspecting tourists like me).
#2: For the record, there are actually FIVE Grosse Pointes (from south to north): Grosse Pointe Park, Grosse Pointe (City, the classic), Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe Woods, Grosse Pointe Shores.
#3: NEVER, ever (!) bring your own towel to a private club.
