April in the D

If you're following this blog, you might have noticed that I've taken another extended break from the posting, but it's all for a good reason.  You'll just have to play catch up with me over the next few months to find out why.

Where did we leave off?  April, is it?  Well, since the season is changing now to Fall, it's only appropriate that I start this post when the weather was just turning the corner to warmth.  I remember this day fondly because we had a breath of fresh air, beautiful sunshine, and trip to the D that only required a light jacket.

I'm not sure how many checks this day deserves but a whole lot as we hit up a bunch of new places and activities that haven't been previously blogged about (at least in LiB world).  The day started with driving tour of the "APRIL IN THE D" Bobbleheads that were spread through the City of Detroit.  "APRIL IN THE D" is FOX Sports Detroit's way of helping "Detroiters out of the winter blues" as they put on their "sixth annual campaign, celebrating the city’s passion for sports and the welcomed arrival of springtime."  I can't believe we never noticed this in the 6 years we've been here.  Oops.  Well, this year seemed like a good year to start as they distributed life-size Bobbleheads of some of Detroit's favorite athletes positioned in some of Detroit's most prominent landmarks.  So you can see the appeal to us: sports, Detroit landmarks, outdoors, photo ops.  Done and done.  

Courtesy of Fox Sports Detroit

Thus, we started the Bobblehead tour at the Rosa Parks Transit Center to find Pistons Center Greg Monroe's Bobblehead.  We looked all around outside the transit center, expecting these to be fairly large statues, but his was actually inside the building and not as big as we originally thought.  But he did bobble!

Next, we drove over to Grand Circus Park to find Red Wings alumnus Kris Draper.  He had one of the nicer backdrops.  From there, it was an easy drive over to Campus Martius Park to find his pal, Niklas Lidstrom.  Both these fellows were missing their sticks.  Of course, vandalism was most likely involved.  This is Detroit, after all. 

 

Luckily, this was a perfect opportunity to also check out a newer coffee joint in the city, The Roasting Plant.  

With roots in NYC, The Roasting Plant, they brought their concept of grinding the beans and brewing each cup of coffee on the spot.  They have a proprietary system called Javabot that "uses custom-designed pneumatic tubes to produce the freshest cup of coffee on the market today."

It certainly is worth the premium price on a cup of coffee to watch the beans fly through the air to be grounded just for your order.  Coffee was strong, creamy, and up to our darkness standards!

Even though it was a warmer day in the D, armed with a warm cup of coffee, we braved the brisk air off the Detroit River to find Pistons player Brandon Knight at Rivard Plaza.

We circled back around to the GM Renaissance Center to hit up what was probably our two favorite Bobbleheads, Detroit Tigers players Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander in the lobby.

Of course, the fun didn't stop there, we made our way to the Joe Louis Arena for the First Annual HOCKEYTOWN BREWHAHA.  Another new beer event amongst many that seem to be popping around Detroit.  In fact, the entire country seems to be ablaze with craft beer-related events.  This event actually was combined with another trending event, food trucks.  Detroit is home to a growing food truck population, which goes along with a third trend of bringing back local, farm to table, restaurants.  With all that, you had in the fact that this event was literally on the ice that the Red Wings skate on, we couldn't be deterred.  Plus, we found a Groupon that made the price of admission a little more reasonable!

Scottie and I entered the event shortly after it started through the VIP gates obtaining our passport-like books on lanyards with a 1 food ticket for each food truck vendor, and 6 beer tickets (I noticed that the latest BREWHAHA event now features 10 beer tickets, which seems a little more reasonable). 

As we entered the scene, noticed that the beer vendors were around the outside of the rink while the food trucks, music stage, and high top tables were sprinkled throughout the main ice area.  After grabbing our first beers - Bell's Black Note and Founder's KBS - we discovered that we could climb up in the stands!  Oh yea, and we were very excited to see Founder's bringing the KBS.  I think we used two of our six tickets on that, but you can't beat fresh from the keg.

We spent quite some entertaining ourselves with great photo opportunities around the ice even getting an usher to take the one above of us sitting on the Red Wings bench (not the most comfortable seat).  Later, we met up with Scott, Angela, Reimer, and Becca continuing on to some of the food vendors!  The Mac Shack Mac n' Cheese, El Guapo Nachos, and Treat Dreams Ice Cream were probably the winners on my list.  

Post-festival, we took the People Mover to get us over to the Grand Trunk Pub because we apparently felt like the 6 4-ounce pours were just enough to wet our appetite for more good craft beer!  As we headed onto Jacoby's (with a stop in at Sweetwater Tavern), we passed some classic Detroit signage.  The first just made me think about the tragic events in Boston thinking that all it needed was a #BostonStrong on it while the second we've passed a number of times in the city and it always makes me wonder how long art like this will remain in the city. 

 

To cap the evening, Scottie and I dined at El Barzon for another fantastic blend of Italian and Mexican.  This spot is easily going to make it into our top 5 restaurants in Detroit.  What a spectacular day and glad I'm back on the blogging scene to relive it!  Cheers!