motss.con.xxvi (Ann Arbor, MI): Day Trips

Take a van tour of Detroit. We're renting a van for the day and have two limited-seating tours; Arthur will drive and has a local friend of a friend to be the tour guide). There will be 2–3 stops to walk around and take pictures. The driving tour will be approximately 2.5 hours, with a half-hour walking tour of downtown at the end. Highlights will include glorious downtown buildings, the Heidelberg Art-out-of-Abandonment Project, the huge and desolate former Packard Plant, Rivard Plaza with restrooms and views of Canada, and, assuming traffic isn't bad, Detroit Central Station.

The van will leave con.central at 8:30am for the morning tour which will run 9:30am–12:30pm in Detroit. The afternoon tour will load from the restaurant at 1:50pm or the downtown Detroit location at 2:15pm, for the 2:30–5:30pm tour.

Cost is $35/person and seating is limited, so please coordinate which tour (if either) you'll go on with Arthur over on Facebook.

Josh will lead interested parties on a free walking tour of the Cranbrook grounds in Bloomfield Hills. Cranbrook is one of the world's leading centers of education, science and art. Comprised of a graduate Academy of Art, contemporary Art Museum, House & Gardens, natural history museum and Pre-K through 12 independent college preparatory schools, Cranbrook welcomes thousands of visitors and students to its campus each year. Founded by Detroit philanthropists George and Ellen Booth in 1904, Cranbrook's campus features the work of world-renowned architects such as Eliel Saarinen, Albert Kahn, Steven Holl, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Rafael Moneo, Peter Rose and sculptors Carl Milles, Marshall Fredericks and others. Critics have called Cranbrook "the most enchanted and enchanting setting in America" and in 1989, it was designated a National Historic Landmark.

The Cranbrook tour is only available in the morning. We'll leave from the Microtel lobby at 9am, tour Cranbrook for a couple of hours, then meet up with the lunch bunch at bd's Mongolian Grill in Dearborn around 12:30pm.

Take yourself on a self-directed tour of The Detroit Institute of Art ($8 adult, $6 senior, $5 college student). It covers 658,000 square feet that includes more than 100 galleries, a 1,150-seat auditorium, a 380-seat lecture/recital hall, an art reference library, and a state-of-the-art conservation services laboratory. Their collection is is among the top six in the United States, comprising a multicultural and multinational survey of human creativity from prehistory through the 21st century.

Those interested in self-directed tours can enjoy them in the morning or afternoon.

Bitty will lead a group to Dearborn for the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village.

The Henry Ford Museum ($17 adult, $15 senior, $12.50 child) began as a simple yet bold idea to document the genius of ordinary people by recognizing and preserving the objects they used in the course of their everyday lives. It grew into the ultimate place to explore what Americans past and present have imagined and invented — a remarkable destination that brings American ideas and innovations to life. The sheer scope and design of Henry Ford Museum is as grand as the vision that inspired it. It's impossible not to feel a sense of awe as your mind adjusts to a different sense of scale — more vast, more expansive and more diverse — by far — than anything you'll encounter in everyday life. The sweeping, single-floor space with its soaring 40-foot ceilings covers nine acres dedicated to showcasing the finest collection of its kind ever assembled.

Entering Greenfield Village ($24 adult, $22 senior, $17.50 child) is like stepping into an 80-acre time machine. It takes you back to the sights, sounds and sensations of America's past. There are 83 authentic, historic structures, from Noah Webster's home, where he wrote the first American dictionary, to Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory, to the courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practiced law. The buildings and the things to see are only the beginning. There's the fun stuff, too. In Greenfield Village, you can ride in a genuine Model T or "pull" glass with world-class artisans; you can watch 1867 baseball or ride a train with a 19th-century steam engine. It's a place where you can choose your lunch from an 1850s menu or spend a quiet moment pondering the home and workshop where the Wright brothers invented the airplane. Greenfield Village is a celebration of people — people whose unbridled optimism came to define modern-day America.

Those interested in self-directed tours can enjoy them in the morning or afternoon.