Observation:  Today’s ride and neighborhood selection was a little more targeted based on a friend’s request. As a child, this woman was playing in a park near her home in southwest Detroit when a group of gypsies (yes, they were/are a thing) took her out of the park bathroom and shoved her into a van. They were attempting to kidnap her and they were only stopped when this friend’s mother realized what had happened and literally climbed in the van to get her back. Anyway, she asked me to take a picture of that bathroom, and you can see below that it amazingly hasn’t changed in the decades since she had this traumatic event. If the timing of this moment varied by a few minutes she knows her life could have been wildly different, and you have to wonder how many of us have been that close…and just never knew it.

Distance:  17.60 miles

D-Fact:  During Prohibition it’s estimated some 75 percent of illegal liquor supplied to the U.S. was smuggled through the city’s waterways.