Last fall I mentioned that I’d purchased a birthday gift for all three of us, the November babies — a two-hour cruise on the J.W. Westcott, the mail boat the services the freighters on the Detroit River. We thought we might be able to schedule it right around Christmas, but the cold weather and ice came in early, and they said we’d be better off waiting until spring.
We set it for Sunday. The day couldn’t have been more perfect — the smash-cut to full summer I’d been predicting for a while. It was clear blue skies, 80 degrees, not a hint of rain and not even that much wind to make the water choppy. The party limit was six, so it was the three Derringers plus friends Dustin, Will and Cam, Kate’s boyfriend.
Upriver or down, we were asked. Down, we decided. None of this see-our-lovely-riverwalk-and-Belle-Isle for us; that’s easy to see. But to go down to look at the dirty ass crack of the industrial Midwest? Yeah, that’s more our speed.
We set out from the Westcott dock in the shadow of the Ambassador Bridge and passed under the nearly complete Gordie Howe Bridge — which our idiot president has threatened not to “allow” to open…
…and got up close and personal with a bulk loader that looks surprisingly good, maybe because it’s only eight years old. Dig that cute little lifeboat. Best wear your seatbelt when it makes its getaway.
Past the zombie-apocalypse hellscape of Zug Island…
…and into the Rouge River aka the other American river to catch fire, back in the day. (Ohioans know the other one — the Cuyahoga, in Cleveland.) It’s much improved, but I wouldn’t go swimming in it for all the tea in China. But it’s where the stuff that makes other stuff gets delivered and taken away and made into more stuff. Aggregate, coke, all that stuff. Even the tugboats look like they’ve seen some shit.
The bridges got out of our way.
Except for on the way back, when we had to stop to let a train go past. Then it was back up the river to the dock and, later, a table for six at a nearby Mexicantown spot. We all agreed it was a fine day out.
This is a trip to take when you’re convinced the city has no more to show you, that you’ve seen it all. You haven’t. I hope it’s a nice day for your cruise, too. And you get to do a mail delivery to a big ship. Although the crew said it’s mostly Amazon boxes these days. And pizzas and Door Dash.
Now I’m dehydrated and sun-dazzled and ready for an early bed. Two more days of summer heat before it moderates again. Eighty-seven tomorrow.
Peter said on May 17, 2026 at 11:07 pm
I’m going to need to add this to my bucket list.
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Deborah said on May 17, 2026 at 11:15 pm
That’s just crazy 87º in Detroit in mid-May?
We’re having lovely weather in Santa Fe, although single digit humidity levels are scary, 7% yesterday. Today they had red flag warnings about fire with very low humidity and high winds, only we didn’t get the high winds, it was more in eastern NM as I understand. We’ve been watering a lot already, it’s going to be a long hot, dry summer I’m afraid.
The condo yard is shaping up after a week of winter clean-up and some planting in pots. We’ve about given up on planting directly in the ground because our dirt is so bad. We only do what we know works, over and over. The parking lot is the worst looking place and it’s the first thing you see when you drive up the lane, drives me crazy.
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Jeff Gill said on May 18, 2026 at 8:50 am
On the south side of Chicago, they used to have a (to me) fascinating Calumet Harbor boat tour, which is no more; I’m told the Chicago Architecture Center river cruise is excellent up and down the Chicago River past Wolf Point. Haven’t done that one but it’s on my overflowing bucket list.
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alex said on May 18, 2026 at 8:51 am
I was hoping we’d get to try out the Gordie Howe bridge on our Canadian trip planned for one month from now, but it looks like the project is still wrapped up in red tape.
I got to see the ass crack of Fort Wayne on a river tour maybe seven or eight years ago when it was a new thing. Pretty much nothing to see but homeless encampments in a flood plain. And it was on someone else’s dime and they served alcohol so not a bad time, really.
They did a huge environmental remediation underneath Hall’s Old Gas House (a longtime bar/restaurant housed in a 19th-century public utilities building) but even so you can still see purple, blue and yellow oil slicks burbling up out of the riverbank below.
Yesterday was a perfect weather day. We got all of our garden planting done, had a family dinner outdoors and then took an evening booze cruise on our little lake. First time in a while that I was actually able to let go of my Trumpian existential angst and just savor the surroundings and the moment.
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Pam H said on May 18, 2026 at 9:16 am
Who took the photos? They’re amazing. What a nice trip, now you will have to schedule a trip going the other direction. I like the bridge. So what’s the beef with the idiot in chief on the GH Bridge? He didn’t get his name on it? It’s not gold? He wasn’t paid his vig for it? Glad the weather cooperated, it’s been so weird this Spring.
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kayak woman said on May 18, 2026 at 9:20 am
Right decision to head south past Zug, et al. I have never done that tour but we used to occasionally go down river in a relative’s boat.
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Peter said on May 18, 2026 at 11:11 am
I apologize for my tirade on this beautiful post, but finally I saw an article in The NY Times that sums up my anger (for lack of better word) on this gerrymandering crap.
I have to admit that I have a hard time with the majority-minority district issue, because I really think gerrymandering ought to be eliminated, which was something that was attempted during the last administration (which, by my emotional state, was what, about 40 years ago?)
So the Times ran a computer simulation – what if the house districts in the South were apportioned to be as compact and natural as possible – which is done in some states with an independent commission, and was suggested to go nationwide?
Current number of minority representatives in the South – 24
Number of minority representatives in the South in a balanced plan – 23
Thank you.
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tajalli said on May 18, 2026 at 11:31 am
Thank you, Nancy. The beautiful pictures have really floated my boat for today. Summer has arrived here also, about a month early.
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Sherri said on May 18, 2026 at 2:05 pm
Setting aside concerns about gerrymandering, it’s very clear what passage of the Voting Rights Act did for Black representation in Congress, and what John Roberts and friends are undoing. This chart demonstrates it.
https://www.statista.com/chart/36167/number-of-african-american-members-of-congress/?srsltid=AfmBOorrlh8pKuCf0AgxQDKTn6Co_fOeyEHRJhROZf0BCqfGu8AtBCHY
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Heather said on May 18, 2026 at 5:17 pm
Nice! I wish I had a friend with a boat, but I don’t, so we make do with kayaks. This weekend a friend and I paddled on the Chicago River because we’d heard you can hear and kind of see shows at the Salt Shed, a venue that’s located in the old Morton Salt factory right next to the water. And you can! Good way to save on concert tickets.
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Deborah said on May 18, 2026 at 5:59 pm
We’re about done with any new plantings this year in the Santa Fe condo yard. I fear that they’ll ban all watering later in summer because of the ongoing drought and then things will fry and die. All of the plants we buy now are drought resistant except for some of the flowers we put in pots, and even those we think about more carefully about water requirements. We try to think of things to do that improve the property without water, like rocks, which everyone does around here for obvious reasons, but it’s not my favorite look.
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Julie Robinson said on May 18, 2026 at 6:49 pm
Even drought resistant plants need water to get established. The city of Orlando is going all nanny state about us using extra water, sending emails and today, an actual letter in the mail. We lost most of our garden in the unprecedented freeze this winter, and we’re replacing them all with natives. These shouldn’t freeze and once established, will need very little water. Plus we put in irrigators instead of using a hose. But they need water now, and we’re using it.
The lady across the street just laid new sod, and you can bet she’ll be watering it, and fertilizing too. We use zero chemicals and only enough water to get by.
I’m in a mood because I found out my mom’s been a victim of Medicare fraud. Her new podiatrist had her sign a paper that said he could take over all her medical management and has been charging Medicare $80/month for it. The care consists of them texting her a question once a month about how she’s feeling.
She’s almost blind, hence the need for help trimming her toenails, and she’s almost 93 and in the grip of dementia. I believe they presented it to her as standard for billing insurance, though I can’t be sure, as it took place in the exam room. Usually I go with her for exams, but didn’t think I was needed for a toenail trim.
I’m furious about it and she feels terrible about being tricked, but I will be reporting this to Medicare. I shudder to think of the process.
But you can believe she won’t be signing any medical papers without me reviewing them first.
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Deborah said on May 18, 2026 at 7:40 pm
Was in a check out lane the other day buying plants, the cashier was an elderly man who had a hand with a pretty nasty bruise on it like Trump’s. He wasn’t very efficient checking people out, he would have speeded things along if he came out into the customer lane with his scanning gizmo but he stayed behind the counter and made small talk with everyone and everyone had to put their plants on the counter one at a time. It was aggravating until I realized that’s how it used to be, we used to have personal relationships with the check out people, and we’d trade stories and whatnot. It still makes me irritated when they do that but I need to take deep breaths.
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Dorothy said on May 18, 2026 at 8:30 pm
Julie I’d be blind with rage if I learned about that! Can you report the podiatrist to some state board or anything? Shame on those asswipes! (That’s the nicest word I can come up with on short notice)
That tugboat is very reminiscent of the one Forest Gump bought when he got out of the Army. Was Lieutenant Dan anywhere afoot? Or aboat?
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David C said on May 19, 2026 at 5:48 am
For most of us, they could throw anything into the load of forms we have to sign when we go to a new provider. They’re like EULAs for doctors. They know very few take the time to read them.
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Icarus said on May 19, 2026 at 3:22 pm
Nancy, how did you book this boat trip? I’m not seeing anything on the website specifically about booking a boat ride. I know, I’ll have to call them on the phone like a caveman, but this would be fun when we visit Grosse Point in June. Unless it’s too cost prohibative.
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Sherri said on May 19, 2026 at 7:48 pm
I recently picked up the book American Sirens, by Kevin Hazzard, which is the story of Freedom House EMS in Pittsburgh, the origin of our modern paramedics. Freedom House recruited Black men, trained them up, defining what a paramedic was in the process, and sent them out to serve primarily the Hill District in Pittsburgh, a poor Black neighborhood. They were incredibly successful at saving lives, yet the city of Pittsburgh resisted them at every turn, eventually shutting them down in 1975 in favor of a new paramedic service, which put all sorts of barriers in the way of hiring the Freedom House paramedics, even though they had superior training and experience.
I moved to Pittsburgh in 1984, and learned nothing of Freedom House’s pioneers. It was not until I heard a 99% Invisible episode about them in 2020 that I knew anything about their story. I was reminded again of this from a recent episode of The Pitt, which acknowledged their legacy.
99% Invisible, a long-time favorite podcast, is undertaking a new project, The History of the United States in 100 Objects. The first episode is available now, in the 99% Invisible podcast feed.
The project is in conjunction with the BBC, and I was recently reminded that the BBC does amazing radio dramas. I discovered Tumanbay, which is an epic historical fantasy inspired by the Mamluk slave dynasty of Egypt. I bought the complete series on Audible, then discovered that it is also available as a podcast. Amazing sound design, immersive, complex: I’m only a couple of episodes in and I’m completely hooked.
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Deborah said on May 19, 2026 at 8:20 pm
Thanks for the reminder Sherri, I used to listen to 99% Invisible, somehow it had fallen off my radar for the last couple of years.
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alex said on May 19, 2026 at 11:22 pm
Just finished watching a PBS documentary on W.E.B. DuBois and came away surprised at how little I actually knew about him, especially about how early and how forcefully he championed equality and integration, and how much respect he earned all over the world but never here. He wasn’t a big fan of NATO–the dark races weren’t invited to the table, just their colonizers and exploiters. His whole life and belief system were shaped by the conflict between pragmatism and idealism and late in life he finally just said fuck it and went with idealism. Good on him. I want to be like him.
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Brandon said on May 20, 2026 at 3:19 am
I’ve never been to Carmel, Indiana (or anywhere east of California, actually), but for those who have lived in, or at least visited it, would you agree or disagree that it is the best place to live in America?
https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/why-carmel-indiana-is-the-best-place-to-live-in-2026-2027
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Jeff Gill said on May 20, 2026 at 7:23 am
Brandon, I was just looking at my local paper’s version of that story, which showed Parma & Mentor as the only two Ohio places on the list, with Indiana’s Carmel & Fishers at #1 & #2. Since it doesn’t have Granville OH on the list, clearly their methodology is flawed, and I wondered how.
The formula for this “best places to live” list seems to weight a number of factors, with housing affordability pretty high, as well as job growth, and other hard factor amenities like health care facilities nearby. Since I spent a big chunk of 2020-2024 living more in Indy than Ohio, but the part of it hard up against the intersection of Marion County with Hamilton County and Carmel & Fishers both blocks away, I got a good look at the places. “Best places” I’m not so sure, but they are mostly new build, with indeed more of a range of housing than is currently available around here in my own Brigadoon, and there are outposts of the hospital empires contending for the care of central Indiana residents immediately available. The Carmel & Hamilton Southeast schools are highly ranked on the usual scales.
Looking at the next few places on the list, I’d say newness is the common thread: the “best places” are not quaint or with historic character or even visual charm. They’re relentlessly new, with enough range of housing to allow people to climb aboard the train heading for the future, and I concede that’s something. Fishers had a little historic core which is entirely obliterated; Carmel’s is just barely visible still in patches just north of an urban core all twenty years or less of vintage and with just enough vertical to say “we’re on our way up.” And Carmel is famously the place where roundabouts became a city planning staple; I know they passed 200 of them at some point while I was still “living” there full-time-ish with my father-in-law, and they keep adding them.
Or to sum up, “best” seems to equal “most profitable” for developers. Here in my best place to live, there’s quite a tension between developers hungry to build homes in our top-rated school district, and residents desperate to keep our property & income taxes from going higher to expand the district rapidly . . . and likely to kill the goose laying those golden eggs, but I would cynically note the developers are happy to rake in a quick take, knowing the schools won’t stay as highly ranked with a 30% surge of students in a decade or less, but by then they’ll be retired in Florida, so they’re pushing every legal lever to build high price homes as fast as they can. Lower cost housing doesn’t have a chance (and why our son is living in a condo we bought as an investment, which will turn out well for us, but it’s also the only way he can live within ten+ miles of his job).
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alex said on May 20, 2026 at 8:06 am
Carmel is nice, yes, walkable and charming and all that. We have friends who live there and we love to visit them and dine out, but they tell us it’s a bastion of white flight and arriviste snobbery and that they don’t find the same sense of community there that they did when they lived on the north side of Indianapolis. So “best place to live” is an arbitrary designation at best. Next year US News will tell you that it’s Annapolis or St. Augustine or Scottsdale and sell advertising accordingly to those who would benefit from the proclamation.
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Dave said on May 20, 2026 at 8:18 am
Brandon, I live in the very next town adjacent to Carmel, Westfield, and I have no way of knowing if it’s one of the best places to live, as Jeff Gill said, their school is very highly ranked and the downtown is quaint, full of little shops and restaurants. There are many multi-story apartment buildings that tower four and five stories and rapidly growing Westfield is getting many of the same, which I’m personally not fond of. Carmel is full of roundabouts, supposedly the roundabout capital of the U. S. and people either love them or hate them, if you get on a good roll, you can go quite a ways without stopping but they’re somewhat scary at busy intersections. Westfield also has a good number of roundabouts and more coming.
We had two grandsons in the Westfield school system and our daughter and son-in-law seem to be satisfied with the schools here.
We live here because our family is nearby, we see all of our grandchildren frequently and our childless son and wife live only forty miles away so we’re not going anywhere.
Oh, Brandon, there’s a man who lives down the street who lived in Hawaii for a good many years and his wife was from Carmel but she moved to Hawaii at a young age and had some success there as Dole’s first female management trainee. She had great success with that and was involved later with some small farm initiatives in Hawaii. She and her husband moved here to be near her family but sadly, she had a massive stroke and passed away only about a year after moving here. I used to talk to her husband occasionally but he seems to become somewhat reclusive since she passed away.
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basset said on May 20, 2026 at 9:08 am
Carmel has the most roundabouts of any city in the USA, about twice as many as second-place Lincoln, Nebraska.
Nothing quite as complicated as the famous mega-roundabout in Swindon, UK, though… five smaller roundabouts bordering and feeding into one great big one in the middle: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2vf5cn/a_british_intersection_with_6_roundabouts_and_38/
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