Belle Isle

Downtown Detroit from Belle Isle

The MacArthur Bridge

We left the Irish Hills and headed towards Detroit for a few days. We found a spot at the Wayne County Fairgrounds where we have water and electricity and lots of freshly mowed grass. We had mud at our last park and it was a bit of a nuisance with all the rain we have been getting. One reason for coming this direction is we wanted to see Detroit and see if it is as bad as we have heard. We headed towards downtown and the Detroit River and saw many buildings that had been abandoned and quite a number of businesses that have been closed. We sure got the impression that the area was severely depressed!

We came to Belle Isle, one of the islands in the Detroit River and decided to explore it. Belle Isle is a 982 acre park under the care of the Detroit Recreation Department. The beautiful MacArthur bridge provides access to the park. There are large expanses of grass and parking and picnic places are abundant. Wonderful views of downtown Detroit are to be had and of course, you can see Windsor, Ontario from the other side of the island. There are a number of small lakes on the island and we saw several folks trying their luck at catching some fish. We saw hundreds of Canada geese, many of them hatched this spring. Matter of fact, we don't think we've ever seen so many geese in one spot! The geese parade back and forth across the roads and fully enjoy the right of way!

Belle Isle contains several beautiful structures: the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory, the James Scott Memorial Fountain, the Nancy Peace Brown Carillon Clock and there are two yacht clubs there, the Detroit Yacht Club and the Detroit Boat Club. The island also has a municipal golf course, a Coast Guard post and is home to the Dossin Great Lakes Museum. There are other attractions as well but we did not explore them. The park was well used and reasonably clean with the exception of the goose offerings. The adult geese are now moulting so primary wing feathers were plentiful on the lawns. It is a beautiful park in a beautiful setting and is well worth the effort to visit.

We continued along the river and crossed an intersection into one of the Grosse Pointe communities. Instantly, the community dramatically changed. The lawns were not just mowed, they were manicured! The houses were large, well maintained and most set back from the road. Many houses were large estates, some could even be described as palatial. It was obvious that this had been an upper class neighborhood for quite some time. The contrast between the previous neighborhoods was literally black and white. There are a number of nicer suburbs surrounding Detroit but the Grosse Pointes have to be among the nicest.

The Detroit River turns into Lake St. Clair, a beautiful large body of blue water. There were many mansions along this stretch as well, including the 87 acre estate of Edsel and Eleanor Ford in Grosse Pointe Shores. You may remember the Edsel, named for Henry Ford's only child and a total failure in the marketplace. This estate is now open to the public although we did not visit it: http://www.fordhouse.org/.

On our way home to our wobblebox we decided to see Fair Lane, the home of Henry and Clara Ford. Fair Lane originally included 1300 acres along the River Rouge in Dearborn. The house has 56 rooms and 31,000 sq. ft. The property had its own power plant designed by Thomas Edison and Ford even provided power to part of Dearborn. Fair Lane was named after a road in Ireland where his father was born. In 1957, the Ford Motor Company donated 196 acres of the Henry Ford Estate along with $6.5 million to the University of Michigan to create the Dearborn Campus. This gift included the Fair Lane home and other buildings which have been administered by UM for the past 53 years. In 2011 the UM is transferring Fair Lane to the non-profit organization than runs the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House so the Ford mansions will then both be administered and managed by the same organization. http://www.henryfordestate.org/.