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We took advantage of the newly-opened Gordie Howe Bridge’s free multi-use pathway. All the other methods of entering Canada from Detroit cost money. But thanks to our friends to the south, bicyclists and pedestrians are not charged any tolls on the GHB.

So on a sunny Sunday afternoon, we tried it out. Here are some things that we noticed, and some might be helpful for you to know before you go.

The signage is lacking
You enter through a nondescript building. Here is the building, as seen from the bike path that connects to it and takes you to downtown Detroit if you want.

Can you tell if that closest doorway is the entrance or exit? No? Neither could we. It turns out that’s the exit, and the entrance is the farther door (left side of the photo, and the left of the two doors if you’re looking at the building from W. Jefferson).

The only way we could tell is by the sign off to the other side of the pathway.

You could also try the doors, as the exit doors won’t let you in. We did not do that, as we didn’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention from the border patrol people.

There are 3 ways to get cross the border at Detroit/Windsor: 2 bridges and one tunnel. Approaching all of those by car, there are plenty of signs to direct you where to go, and you know where to go and what to do and what is expected of you.

With the bike path, there is none of that. No sign on or near the doors that says it is a point-of-no-return. Nothing that warns people they will need proper documents past this point. We generally knew what we wanted to do, but it was still a guessing game.

When we through the entrance, there was a line of people.

We weren’t sure if that was the line to enter the official bridge pathway or what. We didn’t want to be rude, so we went the end of the line and started waiting. But it didn’t seem right because the line was facing the wrong way, so we asked people in line what the line was for and they said it was to get back into the US. If you want to go across the bridge, just go that way.

So we walked down the fully-fenced-in path (AKA the cage) and ended up on the start of the bridge. I turned around and took this picture, you can see the end of the cage on the right.

Once we were out in the open, it was a nice day – sunshine and a good breeze. The bridge was popular, but not too crowded. I expect once the novelty wears off it won’t be as popular.

They have a fence along the whole way that is meant to discourage people from jumping off the bridge, so the view looks like this:

But if you stick you phone between those slats it looks like this:

It is required of all bridge walkers to get a picture from straight underneath one of the two main towers. Here is my participation in that.

And at the halfway point on the bridge, there is a sign noting the actual border and some flags to help you remember which side is which.

We walked over the bridge, then when we got to Canadian soil, we turned around before having to go through Canadian border patrol.

There is not a good destination for walking.
After you get through the Canadian border patrol, you’re in an industrial area. It’s maybe half a mile to the nearest thing you could go to, which happens to be a Tim Horton’s because this is Canada.

I understand the industrial things there aren’t going to go away, because they are along the river for a reason and it’s not worth it to move things like electrical substations. But I would have liked a reason to continue my walk past the border patrol – give me a destination of some sort. Maybe someone is waiting for the initial flurry of activity to die down and see just how many bikers keep using the bridge, to justify setting up a cafe or bike shop or both near the bridge.

And it’s not just Windsor’s problem, the Detroit side isn’t much better. If you want a tour of bleak industrial settings, both sides of the bridge are fine.

The other two crossings (the tunnel and the Ambassador Bridge) take you to actual neighborhoods with things to do right there, but they don’t allow pedestrians. The GHB is the only one that allows pedestrians, but it was placed for direct access to the 401 freeway so there is not a good destination for pedestrians.

The trailhead is in the wrong spot.
The bridge website lists the official trailhead for starting in Detroit as the Clark Park. And it looks like a nice park. But there is not much parking, and it is almost 2 miles from the GHB pathway entrance. Nobody uses Clark Park to start their walk on the GHB.

There is street parking on W. Jefferson, all along the area by the GHB pathway entrance. There is a parking lot at the historical fort across the street too. And there is Delray Park just a block over and a block down. The official trailhead with parking should be close to the trail, not farther away from the trail than the trail is long.

So after we crossed back over the bridge and got back to the USA border patrol station, we joined the line confidently, knowing what the line was for. It was a long line but kept moving. An once we made it past the border we got in our minivan and left, mission accomplished. The consensus in the group seemed to be that it was fun to do once but no reason to do it again.

Our church had to re-do a parking lot. The edge of the parking lot moved, and there are no lines, so it seemed to me like the back of my vehicle stuck out too far. I thought I could compensate for that by parking at an angle. Then someone else parking nearby said that a shallow angle would make the vehicle longer, which got me thinking “what is the angle at which the vehicle starts becoming shorter?”

And now I have an answer : 45 degrees

I took the dimensions of two different vehicles (a PT Cruiser and a minivan (Dodge Grand Caravan) because they seemed like different classes of vehicles and should give some variety.

I drew out some rectangles to scale, and I was surprised how long and narrow they looked. But I double checked and they are correct. Then I drew in some guidelines, copied the rectangle over, rotated the rectangle until it fit within the guidelines, then noted the angle at which that occurred.

The answers were 42 and 43 degrees for the two vehicles, closer than I expected to each other, and a larger angle than I expected.

So if you see angled parking spots and the angle is less than 45 degrees, they angled the spots in order to control traffic flow direction, not to save space.

Here are some more mini-reviews of books, thanks to summer vacation. I’m going in order of when I read them.

First up: The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett

Having read a couple of Terry Pratchett stories before this, I figured I should start with the first Discworld book before getting into any more Discworld stories.

I did enjoy the writing – puns and clever phrases abound. But this is not a book for the middle-grade fiction demographic, as there are some parts of the story that are more adult in nature. Do with that what you will.

Next up: The Boy Who Knew Everything by Victoria Forester

This is the second book in The Girl Who Could Fly series. And it was written knowing there would be a third book to round out the trilogy, so do not plan on reading this book as a standalone book. If you liked the first book, you’ll like this one.

Next up: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

I read the book first in case we ended up going to see the movie. We have not seen the movie. By some accounts the movie is better, because it cuts some of the rough parts out of the book. Rough as in content that young children should not be exposed to, not as in poorly written. The book was a fairly quick read, not heavy, and varying chapter lengths helped move it along.

It was one of those stories where you knew what was going to happen, but you still wanted to read to find out how.

Next up: Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater

I was not looking for this book. I went to another library because they had a particular book on their shelves and it was quicker to make a trip there than put a hold on it and wait for the inter-library loan system to process it, and this library had a section of Newbery Award winners that caught my eye so I started perusing the titles.

I didn’t want a hefty tome, and this one was not. And it sounded vaguely familiar, so I checked it out. I found out later it was a Jim Carrey movie, and maybe that’s why it sounded familiar.

I’m used to middle-grade fiction, and this was probably two steps below that on the reading level scale. I don’t know what the reading level scale is, but if it’s two steps down from middle grade then it is two steps up from “See Spot Run”.

I have no plans to watch the movie to see what they did with it. But I can see why they cast Jim Carrey as the lead.

Last up: The Princess Bride by S. Morgenstern William Goldman

In keeping with the theme of books and movies, I decided after all the years to finally read The Princess Bride, as it was a book first and movie later.

The only problem with this one, regarding the book/movie duality, is that the guy who wrote the book was also a screenwriter, so the book and movie are basically the same. Including even the side narration between a grandfather and grandson.

The book was fine to read, but when I was done all that happened was that I can now say I read the book. There was no greater sense of accomplishment. There were a few things in the book that were interesting, such as getting the story of Inigo’s father, and also the story of Inigo’s romance.

But in general, the end feeling was that of “never meet your heroes”.

That’s it for this review. More book reviews coming up later this year.

On a recent trip to the UP here in Michigan, we stopped by Whitefish Point. Whitefish Point itself is rather secluded, but it has enough to see that it is a popular place. We toured the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum (which includes the bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald) and an old lighthouse. And then we wandered to the beach, which is mostly sand but has a lot of small rocks too.

The most interesting part about this beach is the line of black sand near the shoreline.

The thing you need to know about Whitefish Point is that it is part of the “graveyard of the Great Lakes” in that it is one of the more treacherous areas and has a large number of shipwrecks. It also happens that many of the shipwrecks are freighters, carrying a variety of things but a common load was iron ore.

Knowing that sand in Michigan isn’t naturally black, and knowing that iron ore is, I told my son (because he was the only one with a magnet) to drag his magnet along the black sand and see what happens.

Sure enough, the black sand stuck to his magnet. Notably, the Edmund Fitzgerald was carrying iron ore on her last voyage, so some of what’s on that beach could be from that cargo.

This is a guide for how to play the game Trumpet. It is out of print and no longer available from most places, so there’s no good link to give you. But if you do see the board game Trumpet at a thrift store or garage sale, now you’ll know what you’re getting.

1. How do I win?
By being the first token around the board to the finish line.

2. How do I move my token?
You get to move forward one square for each trick that you win.

3. How do I win a trick?
The standard way, by playing the highest-ranking card of the suit that was lead, or by playing a card of the trump suit if you can’t follow suit.

4. How do you know what suit is trump?
That’s a big part of playing this game, you can change the trump suit. The game starts with no suit as trump. If when you move your piece it lands on a trump square then you get to pick the trump suit, and it stays that way until someone else lands on a trump square (or you make it to the next trump square). But it is not just one trump suit – there are 6 suits and when you choose the new trump you add the suit marker to the list. The list ends up with all 6 suits, so there is not just one trump suit but rather a trump order, so that all the suits have a ranking, and the game ends up being more about which suits you have than the rank of the cards.

5. How does it work when the suit list is full and you land on a trump square?
In that case, you get to swap two suits, so the suit order never stays the same throughout the game, and even changes during a hand.

It is a fun game and it moves quickly. It might favor luck a little more than other trick-taking games, but not to an annoying degree.

There, now go play Trumpet.

Here are some thoughts I jotted down that aren’t quite sufficient for their own individual blog posts. If you’re the type of person who likes Twitter, pretend each of these is a tweet.

• Kermit the Frog asked “Why are there so many songs about rainbows?” but that is a bad question because there aren’t so many songs about rainbows. Let me ask you, other than “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, what are some songs about rainbows? It is a very short list.
• Some people try to conclude a argument with “Let’s agree to disagree.” But if the other party doesn’t agree, does that nullify the statement? Sometimes I will disagree to disagree, and then the other person doesn’t have a choice.
• I discovered one of the signs your child is getting older is when they start declining the offer to ride in the wheelbarrow. If I was doing yardwork, the kids would always like a ride in the wheelbarrow. Somewhere in the middle school years they don’t take me up on the offer any more.
• Can things be a cold mess? The way I have seen phrases tossed about, the progression goes from “It’s a mess” to “It’s a hot mess”. Where does a cold mess fit in that scale? I’m thinking it means things are less of a mess than how they started. I.e. hot mess = worse mess and cold mess = lesser mess.
• Dear companies trying to be friendly: if your birthday wish to a customer includes the words “Reply STOP to unsubscribe” then I think it is neither heartfelt nor meaningful to the person.

Squirrels cause a variety of problems, some worse than others. The following is not one of the worse ones; in fact it was rather amusing. And not just amusing once things had settled, but it was amusing while it was happening.

We have a shed in our yard where we store things like the wheelbarrow and snow shovels and garden hoses (in the offseason). One of the things stored in the shed is stuff for grilling – charcoal and lighter fluid.

Last fall, when I was putting the stuff away, I must not have rolled the bag of charcoal up. Or maybe it unrolled itself during the winter. Either way, when I went to get the charcoal for the first grilling of the season, the bag was open.

Another thing to note is that the squirrels like our shed. It’s a nice sheltered place.

Anyway, I took the bag over to the grill and dumped some charcoal into the grill, and I saw this:

The squirrels had decided that the bag was a good spot to store walnuts. I picked the walnuts out of the grill, tossed them off to the side of the lawn, lit the grill, and went on.

While we were waiting for the coals to settle down, we noticed a squirrel going to the bag of charcoal. Over the next several minutes, he went to the bag, grabbed a walnut out of it, took it somewhere, and repeated until the bag had no more walnuts. Saved me some work later. But I suppose he caused me some work earlier, so squirrels are still overall a nuisance.