While I’d loosely planned a return route that had us spending another night in Detroit, a few members of our traveling party requested we drive a little further on our Friday travel day. I set our goal as Lansing, the capital city of Michigan, identifying a BBQ spot for dinner and booking a couple of downtown hotel rooms.
Our suitcases were mostly packed from the night before, but we had a dishwasher to unload and trash and recyclables to be taken to the nearest waste station. The station opened at 9:00, so I arrived a few minutes later, drove our van across the scale, and dropped bags in their appropriate bins. There was no fee for the disposal, and the process was quicker than I expected.
We left the house just a few minutes after the time slotted on my rough Friday itinerary, but with time to spare before we were required to check out. Our first stop was at a Canadian Starbucks, followed by George’s on the Harbour, a well-rated place about halfway between our rental home and the Canada/US border.
George’s on the Harbour
We had a sharing theme for lunch, ordering two appetizers, three pizzas, and a bowl of pasta. It came a bit out of order with our pizza arriving first, then pasta, and finally the deconstructed bruschetta and burrata salad delivered to our table last. The peppercorn steak pasta was an early highlight, but we were really happy with all of our food. I’d put it as my favorite non-steakhouse meal of the trip to date, but others ranked it behind the Detroit pizza place. (Noah only gave his Margherita pizza a 14/20.)
Canada Shopping
Noah briefly perused a couple of video game stores, Amanda and Joy shopped with the girls in the Lambton Mall near the US border, and I made a final trip to a Metro grocery store to get through my checklist of snack purchases. I walked away with more Canadian candy, snacks, and banana-flavored Fairlife Core Power protein milk to take back to the States.
Metro had everything on my list except for Dr. Pepper freezer pops, which were sold out.
A trip to Canada felt incomplete without a stop at one of the numerous Tim Hortons we encountered. The donut holes we bought at the mall food court location were mediocre.
The girls were excited about a bubble tea shop in the mall. Eilidh liked her green apple tea with blueberry popping boba a lot.
Arrival in Lansing
We made an additional stop in Flint, Michigan, where Noah spent a lot of time contemplating potential video game and console purchases before settling on a game purchase for a console he does not own. (It was only $13.) By the time we arrived in Lansing, we got disappointing news that the Meat BBQ place I’d saved to my Google Maps had sold out for the day. We unsuccessfully attempted to pivot to a taco truck (that was closed) before settling on Chick-fil-A. (The kids were actually excited bout this change of plans.)
Our tertiary dinner option.
After dinner, we shopped at Meijer, and the girls were thrilled to find giant pickle squishies.
Michigan State Capitol
After we checked into the hotel, Noah and I walked down the street to see the Michigan State Capitol building. First impressions were positive, but a visit during the day and a tour are needed to have a more definitive opinion of the building.
Gibson’s Italia
For our final vacation meal, Amanda and I picked Gibson’s Italia, our favorite restaurant in Chicago. We wanted to introduce it to Joy and the family, though the kids entered a bit skeptical of dining at such a formal restaurant. I may have oversold the mashed potatoes to Eilidh (who swears still that my mom makes them better), but everyone enjoyed the smorgasboard of food and splendid service.
We shared two filets, mashed potatoes, hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, and Brussels sprouts.
We only encountered a bit of Chicago traffic, allowing for a final stop at Jeni’s before we made our final leg of driving home. The DeKalb Oasis is perfectly situated outside of the suburbs on I-88, and there we refueled, traded drivers, and placed mobile orders for McDonald’s Diet Cokes, which we had not had with a proper plastic straw since we left the United States.
The DeKalb Oasis was a pleasant site, exactly 4 hours from home.