A Fall Weekend in The D: Visiting Detroit and The Henry Ford Museums
Recently we decided to take a family getaway to celebrate fall. This was the perfect excuse to visit the Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village event. You may have read about our adventures here for their Holiday Nights before. We have always loved this event and wanted to try out their Halloween event. The thought of being in the village surrounded by vibrant colored trees and crisp autumn air made me almost swoon with anticipation.
With how far Detroit is from our home, it is virtually impossible to visit in just one day. So we decided to make a weekend of it and spend a couple of days. Detroit makes me so proud. I have had no involvement with it, I’ve had no part. It makes me proud though to see how far it has come. I’m sure we all know about the fall of Detroit. Once a huge industrialization hub it was abandoned and basically left for dead.
But Detroit fought back. This has been going on for decades of course, this progression of being abandoned and left to starting a movement, to rebuilding, but in the time we have been visiting it’s been so amazing to see the difference the city has seen.
Our first trip to Detroit together was 15 years ago. It was dark, dirty, and we felt very leery of the city. I remember we found a greek restaurant in Greek Town near Ford Field and then played the slots in the casino. It was a long time ago.
I’m thankful for that trip because this time we again visited Greek town and we commented on how different things are. The city felt hopeful, thriving, and clean. No longer did it feel as though it was struggling to get out from the stereotype of run down but rather that it had created it’s own identity after falling from grace. Now it is a restored city and what is left is being celebrated. Detroit has become the Secret Garden. It isn’t one of the biggest cities, perhaps even called the “Hidden” gem of the MIdwest, this place has created its own beautiful with what was left instead of treading water, trying how to figure out how to recreate everything that was lost. Instead they pushed the bramles aside, looked at the young shoots coming up from the soil and decided to work with that. My small words cannot seem to encompass everything that Detroit is, but it is a tiny tribute of the hope it gives me each time I visit.
Thank you for attending to my ted talk on Detroit. Now let me tell you about our trip…
Our first day there we decided to visit an art museum. We found on-street parking and then went into the Detroit Institute of the Arts. The museum is incredible. With hushed tones quiet inspiration floods every space. So much to see and truly immersify yourself with. If you have never been, I highly recommend the museum. It’s one of the top art museums. Seriously. One of my favorite places is the glass ceilinged atrium where you can get a cup of coffee and truly sit in tranquility, thinking of higher thoughts like art and love. It’s one of my top spaces I’ve ever been to. My other favorite is the mural that the museum was basically created for, the Rivera mural in the aptly named Rivera Hall.
We then checked into our hotel, The Henry, in Dearborn Michigan. While technically not IN Detroit I always consider Dearborn a part of Detroit because it’s basically a suburb of the city. The Henry is an Autograph Collection Hotel of Marriott’s. It was a beautiful hotel that proved to be super close to The Henry Ford. It was a great selection for our family to stay at with going to the Halloween Nights.
After checking in, charging our phones, and freshening up, we headed to the main event, Halloween Nights at The Greenfield Village!
Parking was a breeze at the event. I was worried we’d have to park way far away but it proved to be super easy. When we arrived we were greeted by employees and made to feel welcome. Even before we entered in they served us spicy, sweet cider doughnuts and apple cider. So yummy and such a great welcome to the event.
When we entered in we were greeted by the witches of Greenfield Village and then saw the Grim Reaper guarding the entrance to the village. Such a fun and spooky greeting to one of my favorite places.
Have you ever visited Greenfield Village?
If you have not, you definitely should! The village is a huge area that was made into a village setting with houses Henry Ford brought from places around the world. He acquired, deassembled, moved, and reassembled houses from famous people to make sure that they would be saved from ruin. The village consists of places like Robert Frosts house, the Wright Brothers store, the Firestone family farm, and so many more. Tons of places to see and tour.
The Main Street was bustling with Halloween decor, costumed performers (alice in wonderland!), and such fun sights and sounds.
In the town square Emma and I visited the Broom Lot and tried out used brooms to buy from a couple of witches. So fun and silly!
We saw dancing vampires, side shows, singing pumpkins, spooky skeletons. We visited a haunted bridge, an old cemetery,
For dinner we had lots of choices to choose from. We walked around, looking at all of our options and then decided we wanted street food to eat…mounds of pulled pork,buckets of Mac and cheese, baked beans, cider slushees, ice cream. So many yummy food choices.
After dinner we made it for amazing performances from Edgar Allen Poe’s Tales from the Tell Tale Heart, and Legend of Sleepy Hollow. We got to THE Headless Horseman ride at night!
We went back to our hotel around 9, full of sugar, whimsy, and good memories.
At the hotel Nick and Cal watched Price is Right episodes from the 80’s, and Emma and I went hot tubbing. It was so fun and beautiful, and we had the whole place to ourselves.
We definitely were tired when we all went to bed.
In the morning we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel. They had an amazing breakfast buffet and the kids wanted me to tell you that they highly recommend the bacon.
After breakfast we checked out of our room and then decided to drive around downtown Detroit before stopping at our favorite bakery in the world…The Astoria! Located in Greek Town, we have been coming here for 15 years and we’ve loved everything we’ve tried. I love the packages tied up with string and I also love their chocolate dipped biscotti. These yummy cookies are bundled up with a big coat of velvety chocolate that is simply divine when dipped in coffee. Highly recommend these if you can’t decide what to get.
After we were sufficiently stocked up on sweets we went back to the Henry Ford complex to visit the museum.
This time we went inside to the Henry Ford museum. I am a member of the museum and so we are able to purchase tickets at a discount.
We love this museum. I’ve spoken about why it is the best museum in the nation, and you can read all of my reasons in this blog post. Suffice it to say, we are pretty familiar with the museum and know how to easily navigate around.
This time one of the things we really wanted to see was the visiting exhibit, Heroes & Villans: The Art of the Disney Costume. This exhibit was amazing and like always, Henry Ford brings in the best exhibits. Tons of amazing costumes from amazing movies to see. The explanation of planning, creating, and executing costuming was incredibly detailed and informative. We also wanted to see the car from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as we had recently introduced the kids to that movie and then found out the car was now at the museum. So fun to see!
While we were there we saw so many things but we were most excited to see that their indoor vintage restaurant, Lamy’s from Massachusetts, had re-opened! It was so good and so fun to eat there again! Cannot recommend this place enough. We had tomato soup, chicken salad sandwiches, pies, shakes, sundaes, sodas, and more.
After lunch we tooled around the museum some more (my favorite is the dinamax house) before heading home.
We are so grateful we had this weekend away and could experience fall in The D. It was a super fun time, we were able to learn a lot and have some really great family time together. If you are looking to get away and explore a new area, we highly recommend Detroit. There is so much to see and do there (this is just a tiny portion of things to see and do), it is an affordable travel option and close to most people in the Midwest. We hope you enjoy The D as much we do!
