Tuesday In Detroit....Zoo, Ford Factory, Lots Of Laughs

Our first full day in Detroit started with a trip to the zoo.  As we were traveling we noticed all the run down neighborhoods, abandoned homes, amazing graffiti, abandoned factories, and some incredible street art. Our bus driver Nevin was a hoot and so much fun watching him navigate through the city of Detroit and his comments were hilarious...and he had the most incredible sneeze. :-)

The zoo was an incredible place to wander through out the day.  The weather was great...rain forecast, but only saw sprinkles.  But we did see lots and lots or animals with some of the favorites being the chimpanzees, giraffes, pair of wolves, and I think the favorite of all was the incredible penguin exhibit.  Our trip there was much too short, but we did take the train twice and it is nothing to write home about.

The Ford Rouge tour was very interesting for sure.  All of the automation on the factory floor was unbelievable.  I think our favorite spot of the whole tour was the windshield and back installation accomplished totally by robots..pretty crazy.  Not much for pictures here though, not allowed, unless we wanted to risk losing our cameras/cellphones and being sent to Ford penitentiary.   The kids did say this was one way they saw God at work here. They were amazed at the "green" factory and all the things being done by Ford for the environment and creating a sustainable business and energy savings.

When asked to describe the trip in one word we heard: laughter, fantastic, entertaining, trying, carefree, amazing, and stupendous.

When asked what else they would like to share they said they enjoyed dancing in the rain, playing catch phrase at the hotel tonight, meeting new friends and those incredible penguins.  Olivia reenacted how they stood waiting for food.

It was an incredible day for all of us...what will God have in store for us tomorrow? We will venture out to a local church that was instrumental in providing safe passage at the end of the underground railroad. And then the Gathering officially begins!  Good night from Detroit...be sure to follow us live tomorrow night.

Ninja Dan

 Getting ready for the awesome day ahead!

 Kaylee and Anna are great at reenacting every poster they see

 Olivia was yelling "giddy up, horsey" for a while. We finally had to break it to her that she was riding a tortoise

 The gorilla looked at our group and said "how you doin'?"

What an evenly spaced group getting ready to visit the Ford Rouge Factory

 Dancing in the rain

 Brady's FIRST TIME eating at Taco Bell!!!

 A great night of hilarity playing Catch Phrase as a group

 Did you know Detroit has a small population of surviving dinosaurs. Ninja Dan(alad) protected us from them.

All in all a great day!