Day 23

Great day, sunny and NO wind.
Great day for a walk in fact, so that’s what we do. A long walk for here, over to one of Sue’s friends then an walk around her old stomping ground, Tecumseh.
There are the remnants of Halloween still, the autumn (fall) colours and lots of cars.
Most houses have at least two cars in the driveway, sometimes three and at least one is a SUV, van type thing. The third is likely to be a pick-up. The pick-up is like the Ford F100 we have. Large, heavy, rather like our ute’s.
Not sure quite why they are so popular, other than they’re wide enough to put a gun rack in the back window. Though not in Canada, as guns here are very strictly controlled.
This afternoon, Sue’s friend Terryl is taking us over to Detroit for happy hour at some bar she knows that has half price drinks and appetisers.
This entails crossing the Friendship Bridge into the US. The Friendship Bridge is the busiest bridge between US and Canada. The truck cross day and night taking various components back and forth. Mostly car stuff.
There are road works on it, off course, so it is particularly congested.
Terryl drives like a mad woman, signalling lane changes and then leaving her indicator on for a couple of miles.
At the crossing the customs guy, takes our passports. We then go through the where you from, where you going, business or pleasure, how do you know each other. Meanwhile, just 20 feet in front of the car, blocking our way stands another customs guy, fully armed blocking our path.
They let us through with the “have a good day.”
The half price drinks and appetizers bar is quite good. It is at Troy, a suburb of Detroit, and looks quite affluent (“But you are effluent, Kim”). It’s noisy brassy and Terryll is the only black person in the bar.
Detroit is very much a black area. Motown and all that.
The drive back is much the same as the drive out. Fast lane changing and indicators left on.
Inner Detroit is quite forlorn with old buildings, very little in the way of development and most looking unkempt and uncared for.
We survive another border crossing, this time with the Canadian customs.
Not nearly as threatening as the US, but all the same questions.