Day 65 of Mentor on Road, USA

“Instinct is like ice, reason is the water, and inspiration is the subtlest form of vapour.”
-Swami Vivekananda

Day 65 of Mentor on Road is road drive from Chicago to Detroit. It was short journey of 4 hours where we came across beautiful and picturesque views. 

We started driving on 4 June, 2017 from Boston and passed through states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Illinois.  Driven 13,668 kilometres / 8492 miles till now and will drive 15,450 kilometres / 9602 miles in total. We have now entered the 35^th state of our journey, Michigan.                  

Detroit is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan, the largest city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of Wayne County. As per the US Census estimates, the population of Detroit as of July 2016 is 672,795.

Detroit is a major port on the Detroit River, one of the four major straits that connect the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The Detroit Metropolitan Airport is among the most important hubs in the United States. The City of Detroit anchors the third-largest economic region in the Midwest, behind Chicago and Minneapolis, and the 14th-largest in the United States. 

Detroit and its neighbouring Canadian city Windsor are connected through a tunnel and the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest international crossing in North America. Detroit is best known as the center of the American automobile industry, and the "Big Three" auto manufacturers General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler are all headquartered in Metro Detroit.

Detroit was founded on July 24, 1701 by the French explorer and adventurer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and a party of settlers. During the 19th century, it became an important industrial hub at the center of the Great Lakes region. With expansion of the auto industry in the early 20th century, the city and its suburbs experienced rapid growth, and by the 1940s, the city had become the fourth-largest in the country. 

The most significant companies based in Detroit include: 

• General Motors 
• Quicken Loans
• Ally Financial 
• Compuware 
• Shinola 
• American Axle 
• Little Caesars
• DTE Energy
• Lowe Campbell Ewald
• Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan  
• Rossetti Architects

About 80,500 people work in downtown Detroit, comprising one-fifth of the city's employment base. Aside from the numerous Detroit-based companies listed above, downtown contains large offices for Comerica, Chrysler, HP Enterprise, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, and Ernst & Young. Ford Motor Company is located in the adjacent city of Dearborn.

Thousands more employees work in Midtown, north of the central business district. Midtown's anchors are the city's largest single employer Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, and the Henry Ford Health System in New Center. Midtown is also home to watchmaker Shinola and an array of small and startup companies. New Center bases TechTown, a research and business incubator hub that is part of the WSU system. Like downtown and Corktown, Midtown also has a fast-growing retailing and restaurant scene.

In the central portions of Detroit, the population of young professionals, artists, and other transplants is growing and retail is expanding. This dynamic is luring additional new residents, and former residents returning from other cities, to the city's Downtown along with the revitalized Midtown and New Center areas.

A desire to be closer to the urban scene has also attracted some young professionals to reside in inner ring suburbs such as Ferndale and Royal Oak, Michigan.

Many of the area's prominent museums are located in the historic cultural center neighbourhood around Wayne State University and the College for Creative Studies. These museums include the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Historical Museum, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Detroit Science Center, as well as the main branch of the Detroit Public Library. 

Other cultural highlights include: 

• Motown Historical Museum
• The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant museum (birthplace of the Ford Model T and the world's oldest car factory building open to the public) 
• The Pewabic Pottery studio and school 
• The Tuskegee Airmen Museum, Fort Wayne, 
• The Dossin Great Lakes Museum 
• The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) 
• The Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (CAID) 
• The Belle Isle Conservatory

Looking forward to an eventful day tomorrow. 

Jai Ho! (Let victory be yours)