Visiting Detroit, then Pittsburgh

My partner and I have been to Detroit several times over the last couple of years. This is the first time we've had more than a day and a half in the city. We usually stick to similar places, throwing in some random new new ones each time. We start each visit at Slows, my partners favourite restaurant. Yes, she's a vegetarian and yes, this is a barbecue restaurant but they've always had a good veggie option (or two).

We also always go to the downtown location of John K King Used Books, the best (and probably largest) used bookstore I've ever been to. I mean there's a good used/new bookstore in Cleveland but this is four floors of only used books and great prices. The last couple of times I've purchased old genre novels for a couple of bucks and haven't been disappointed.

While my partners combing through designer discount stores, I went to a record store in a suburb north of the city. Got some records.

Saturday was almost all new stuff. First we started the day at the Eastern Market. It's awesome. Just so big and tons of local produce. Someone had a milk crate full of puppies they were trying to sell. It took all of her power to ONLY pet them (they were pretty cute). We wandered all around, just taking everything in. I don't think I've seen anything like that. After the Eastern Market, we were off to more random locations around Detroit. One of my favourite record stores didn't have any interesting wares so we went north, finding a "retro" store that was having an absolutely fantastic back issue sale, letting buy tons of stuff without spending too much. Ended the night by seeing a bad film and eating excellent El Salvadorian food.

Sunday was our travel day. Got up early and started driving across Ohio. Stop at a Chili's for lunch (my partner absolutely LOVES Chili's. Me, not so much). Got to Pittsburgh a little early, which meant a trek to local mall for my better half and record/comic shops for me. Comic book shop was great (again with relatively cheap back issues meant that I was able to complete my run of Uncanny X-Men). Suburban Pittsburgh is interesting because it's so hilly it doesn't have a very suburban feel to it. One quirky fact - there were TONS of ice cream places everywhere. Like one almost every block in some places.

Started Monday with a short hike (3 miles) through the Panther Hallow Run. Didn't exactly get lost but definitely made my own trail in some parts. It was pretty nice park in the middle of the city and great way to start the day after two days of driving and eating. Finally saw the Roberto Clemente statue, which was really nice. Also took full advantage of having a GPS unit in the car. Went to see a movie and right before it started the fire alarm went off. Ended the night at a student dive bar whose deals made me question how they made money. We ate dinner, had a pitcher of beer, two pints of cider, and another pint of beer for $24. Seriously, how was that even possible? (The was pretty bad).

Tuesday was driving back to the city via Buffalo where stopped for dinner at the home of the Buffalo wing. While stuck in traffic in Toronto, after driving almost five hours, a bolt broke off and caused the car to make this awful rattling noise. At the time I didn't know exactly what went wrong (thought it was something minor because the car drove fine just sounded bad) but it stressed me out. Thank god my partner was able to be the calm one in that situation.

If I had my way, next time we'd go further and spend only a day in city, picking one thing to do so we could see more. I think, however, our next trip will be overseas somewhere.