Day 90 and 91 Leamington to Windsor, Ontario

Another relaxing day on the relay. Breakfast at the hotel in Windsor, here is Pat and Marylyn Downey enjoying the ambiance. (interesting though, they are not related)

Day 90 was once again a non-relay event day. Some of the crew went to do presentations at schools. I was on the maintenance crew again, taking our Honda and Acura vehicles to the local dealership in Windsor

I drove by this Windsor Chrysler Assembly plant, the buildings stretched for almost half a mile in my guesstimation.

Apparently, it is Windsor's biggest employer. I also drove by the Ford plant, it was equally impressive.  

In between shuttling vehicles, I went to Future Shop. My tale of woe: I broke my camera before I went on the relay, so I bought a new one in St John's Newfoundland. Then I dropped it at the Bay of Fundy. The salt water killed it. I tried to take it back to Future Shop, but they would not replace it. So I bought another one in Moncton, but about a week ago, it started acting up, and the srceen would go blank. So I went to this Future Shop in Windsor. They wanted to send it away, not understanding that I would not be in Windsor long. Long story short, after a lot of whining and snivelling by me, they replaced it, thank -you, the blog must go on!

About 3 blocks from our hotel there was this great view of Detroit across the Detroit river

Later that evening we headed to Caesars hotel for dinner.

This building did not suit the rest of downtown Windsor, which seems to be on an economic decline. The draw of course is the casino.

Walking home we were treated to another great shot of Detroit.

Day 91, I was back on Shuttle bus today, haven't done it for awhile. My host for the week is Jake. Here we are in downtown Kingsville, Ontario, on our way to our first medal bearer meeting point.

This school was very pumped up for our visit.

Jake and I had the boardroom at the school to do our medal bearer briefing. In the meeting we cover logistics, Rick's story, the vision of the foundation, information about the medal, and of course, a little warm-up dance, shown here.

The pre-board photo-op. On the left is Nicholas, he was the Kingsville High School choice to be their medal bearer. This kid is very much involved with his school and volunteering in his community. Kudos!

Another sponsor stop at McDonald's. Ronald is back, giving high fives to medal bearer Kristen, who was nominated by the restaurant. In front is Joey, our newest endurance athlete. He is from Ottawa, and is just 18 years old. He recently had a motocross accident that has left him a paraplegic

I spotted this sign in Kingsville that brought back a lot of memories from the Olympic torch relay.

In the  afternoon, Jake and I had a meeting at the Universtiy of Windsor. Close by I spotted the Ambassador bridge spanning the Detroit river between the two cities.

25 per cent of merchandise trade between the U.S. and Canada crosses this bridge. It is the busiest border crossing in North America by trade volume.

The Windsor University campus was very large, and Jake and I had the wrong address. Lisa, one of our medal bearers at the University, just happened to be going by and hopped on and showed us the correct building to go to.  

One of our medal bearers was Lisa Williams who is on the CTV radio morning show on cklw am 800. Ctv is one of our sponsors. Anywho, it just so happened their was ad banner  at our meeting place featuring her.

The gym at our meeting place had a lot of mirrors, which created some interesting photos.

Right behind our hotel, I can see the entrance from my room,  is the well known Detroit-Windsor tunnel. What a feat of engineering this is!

There is the tunnel entrance. Awfully tempting..............

Ahh what the heck, when am I ever going to get a chance again, besides, Ross my relay buddy, is on the "other side". He took the bus over and I offered  to go pick him up.

It was a cold monsoon tonight, the medal bearers in my last group didn't even want to get out of the bus. But here I am at the U.S. border.

A lot of questions later, we crossed over into the U.S.A

One of the biggest, newest buildings in Detroit is the GM building

Downtown was colorful, but it was raining and blowing so hard, we had to keep moving.

A lot of neon and lights in the downtown core

Turn the corner and we spy these striking statues.

A restaurant owned by former NHL player Chris Chelios. (it was closed)

The statues were part of the artwork outside of Comerica Park, home of baseball's Detoit Tigers

Hockeytown, the epitome of hockey. This was outside of a sports bar

The Detroit Institue of the Arts.

Unfortunately, what I came to see, entire neighbourhoods abandoned.Even  street lights were turned off.

They say the population at the peak of the big 3 car manufacturers (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) was close to 3 million. I was told the current population was under one million.

The picture does not do the situation justice. This car was left for dead, Even though it looked new, it had been vandalized and picked clean.

We were too late to go to the Motown museum.

Here is the ironic part. When the economy slows down, why would the well to do people stick around. This was one of many mansions in upscale Detroit that were empty, just the lights on for appearance.

ditto

We ended up as far as Royal Oak, Michigan, the rainy weather never let up, time to head north?????????

The tunnel kinda looks the same no matter what direction you are going.

Not the best of photography, but my point is when you come out of the tunnel, the first thing you see is our hotel. My room is on the 6th floor on the left.