Ruly Holiday Road Trip: Day Two, Detroit and Chicago

We awoke in Cleveland on day two of our journey and after partaking of the hotel’s free breakfast, made an early start toward our first destination of the day, Detroit.

Many we told of our travel plans were puzzled by our choice of Detroit as a destination. The news does a good job of making Detroit look like an impoverished wasteland. Since we were so close by and since I had never actually seen Detroit for myself, we decided to see it for ourselves.

We drove through some beautiful Ohio farmland.

Eventually, we reached the Michigan border.

As we entered Michigan, the landscape changed from agricultural to industrial. The industrial buildings and smokestacks made for an interesting, modern contrast.

I had not realized how close Detroit is to the Canadian border. We were surprised to see this exit sign from the highway.

We drove in to the downtown area to find our first stop, known as the DIA. In the Washington area, DIA has a completely different meaning, but in Detroit, it stands for the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The Detroit Institute of Arts is in the headlines recently due to Detroit’s financial difficulties. Opinions differ as to whether the museum should be forced to sell of some of its collection to help the city pay its debts. Before this dismantling could happen, we wanted to see the art collection intact.

We arrived early on a Saturday morning and found ample street parking available. After paying about $20 in admission charges, we began our exploration of the museum.

The central atrium of the museum contains the stars of the museum. The first thing you see is a wonderful collection of armor and historical weaponry. Each suit of armor is different from the others in construction and style. My historian husband gave me a fascinating lecture on the purposes of each design of armor.

In the back part of the atrium is the star attraction of the museum, a collection of Diego Rivera murals. If there is one part of this museum that should never be touched by bankruptcy sales, it is the Rivera atrium. The huge murals showing industrial factory workers are so aptly placed and take on a new meaning and significance because of Detroit’s current and historical importance in manufacturing. It is a powerful and inspiring display.

Flanking the atrium on the first floor are several different collections. A colonial section with early American artifacts, a collection of medieval art and an Impressionist art collection, including several Van Gogh masterpieces.

The museum did a wonderful job making the museum more interactive for children through simple additions to the regular displays. Throughout the museum were several “Eye Spy” stations inviting children to use clues to find works of art.

The museum also set up reaction tables near a particular work of art. The table would ask a thought-provoking question. For example, one about Whistler’s work “Fireworks” discussed the work’s controversial history and how early critics didn’t feel it showed any artistic merit. It invited visitors to submit their own reactions to the work.

You can access the second floor of the museum by walking down a circular staircase in the medieval exhibit which my children loved as a sort of secret passageway.

On the second floor is a large cafe space as well as exhibit spaces dedicated to various countries, including Africa, Egypt, Muslim and Asian art.

In general, I enjoyed the DIA’s art collection. I sincerely hope that it is spared by any bankruptcy proceedings. It did not feel like there was a lot of excess in the museum. If anything, it felt like the museum could use more works, not less.

After we toured the museum, we stopped briefly at the Detroit Historical Society directly across the street.

This free museum has a lot of wonderful exhibits. There is a section about Detroit’s automotive history, including a reproduction of a factory assembly line, where the body of a car lowers down onto the chassis, and a reproduction Model T Ford you can sit in.

There were some interactive video games upstairs asking children to build a car and take it for a test drive to see how their engineering held up. My 8-year old loved this. Meanwhile, my son loved all the miniature model cars.

After our museum touring was done, we went for lunch at Traffic Jam and Snug, a nearby restaurant.

We had some delicious bread and sandwiches and sweet potato fries with spicy sauce. My children enjoyed their mac ‘n cheese.

The proprietors have a great sense of humor. The back of the kids meal had a coloring page of a snow scene. The coloring instructions were hilarious.

Likewise, the dessert menu showed that sweets are supposed to be fun.

Each kids meal comes with a fun clown ice cream cone as well.

After lunch, we quickly drove through the downtown area.

We began to make our way out of Detroit.

We drove through more Michigan farmland and encountered light snow, which became more blizzard-like as we drove.

In the evening, we arrived in Chicago.

We headed downtown where the streets were hopping on a Saturday night.

After finding a nearby parking garage where parking cost $25 for the night, we headed to our dinner destination, Macy’s!

Perhaps it has been watching too many episodes of Mr. Selfridge on PBS but a nostalgia for department store shopping has overcome me. A trip to Macy’s Chicago was just what I needed.

The children loved riding the escalators to the 7th floor.

We ate dinner at Macy’s Walnut Room, a historic restaurant and one of the first ever in a department store. There is a huge, gorgeous Christmas tree in the center and luxurious walnut paneling throughout.

My husband tried the traditional chicken pot pie recipe that is original to the restaurant, I opted for a lighter salad. Their fresh-baked bread was delicious.

One distinctive aspect of Chicago life is that everyone is used to the hard sell. The waiters push drinks, desserts and specials. As we were dining, “wishing fairies” came by, granting wishes to the children (while prominently displaying their purses for tips to the parents). It took a minute to get used to this atmosphere. After a while you just start to admire the pluck and creativity of the sellers.

After dinner, we picked up some of Macy’s famous Frango mint chocolate truffles and ventured into the cold to see the windows outside. It was interesting to learn that while Chicago was packed at 7 p.m., by 9 p.m. the streets were almost empty!

Our hotel was just outside of the downtown area so we said a fond, but chilly good night to The Windy City.

*I am not affiliated with any product or service mentioned in this post.