All Things Detroit & a Food Truck Rally

On Facebook last week, I saw a post about an “All Things Detroit” market day at Eastern Market that was happening on Sunday.  It sounded interesting, and having lived almost my entire adult life in the Detroit area, I’ve never been to Eastern Market . . . so we decided to go.  Talking to our neighbor here in the RV Park, he told us that there was also a big Food Truck Rally going on at Belle Isle Park on Sunday afternoon, which is just down the road from Eastern Market, so hey, we’ll hit that too, and make it a truly blog-worthy day!  We don’t often get those here at home!

Eastern Market is at the northern end of downtown Detroit, a very industrial area, well-known for it’s flower market in the spring and farmers markets throughout the summer.  There are a couple “sheds” that can be enclosed in the colder weather, expanding the market’s season through the year.  Thankfully, this market was in those sheds, because it was chilly outside!

The area around the market is very industrial, but the artists are around – that’s evident in the buildings and surrounding area!

The paintings on the buildings are pretty cool – I was trying to catch a few as we were driving, so not the best pictures.

Inside the sheds, the All Things Detroit Market Day was pretty cool.  There were lots of vendors – selling clothes, jewelry, glassware, tile, paintings and other artwork, and some really nice items for the home (if you still have a house, lots a cool stuff!).

There were a lot of food vendors, too . . . and most had samples out, so that tided us over until we could get to the Food Truck Rally.

It was a really nice market, and we enjoyed it . . . only bought one thing, though . . . a new sticker for the Jeep!

From there, we drove over to Belle Isle . . . it was crowded!!  Crossing over the Detroit River, we drove onto the island, which is now a state park, and were directed to an area to park on the grass.

The big circular picnic area in the middle of the island was surrounded by a huge circle of food trucks – like the pioneers circling their wagons as they travelled to the wild west!

We walked along the road until we found a spot where we could get through and into the center of the circle.

We spotted our neighbor . . . and a big enough opening for us to cut through!

Once inside the circle, we were amazed at the number of food trucks there . . . and the number of people!

We heard that there was supposed to be over 100 food trucks . . . and they they may possible set a Guinness World Record.  I didn’t count them, but there were definitely a lot!

We walked all around the circle to check out the options.

There were long lines everywhere we looked, but the BBQ trucks seemed to be the most popular (or maybe just the slowest serving!), as they all had long lines, but the longest line was at the lobster truck – it went on forever (I was standing around the halfway point of the line when I took that picture)!!

There were several cute vintage trailers as food trucks – a coffee bar, a bakery, and an ice cream sandwich truck!  As cold as it was, his line was still pretty long!

This guy gets the prize for the biggest food truck in attendance!

Mmmm . . . the donuts here looked really good – sounds like dessert!

After walking through the whole circle, we decided to split a BBQ sandwich and a pizza.  We figured we might as well support our neighbor, so Tom got in line and I walked a couple trucks down to get a pizza.

With the looks of this line, the pizza was going to end up being an appetizer!

It was!  Our pizza was ready in just over half an hour, so we enjoyed that while we continued to wait almost another hour to order our BBQ.  We ended up getting the pulled pork and brisket dinner, with 2 sides . . . huge portions, so we took half of it home!  We were so stuffed – and freezing – we completely forgot about getting a donut for dessert!

Another fun adventure!

On the way home, we drove through downtown Detroit . . . the city is looking quite a bit nicer than it used to!

We drove by the Ren Cen – GM World Headquarters,

and the Joe Louis fist.

Not a bad way to spend a day in Detroit.

With just a week left to our stay in Michigan, today our luck ran out and winter caught up to us!  We woke up to big fluffy flakes this morning!

I hope I didn’t bring it on ourselves with my latest quilt square!  lol

Anyway, it’s a good day to stay inside and doing some cooking and sewing! 

A good day for chili!

Good News – 2pm now, and all evidence of the white stuff is gone!!