DETROIT

On the flight back from Florida (that I mentioned earlier) I have a layover in Detroit (a little weird and out of the way, I thought). I've never been there but I've always wanted to, mainly because of ROBOCOP, but also because I've become kind of fascinated by the city over the past few years. The economic downturn seems to have hit Detroit the hardest and it's really kind of heartbreaking to see what was once such a prominent U.S. city fall on such hard times.

This Sports Illustrated article on the Detroit Tigers and its fans at the end of last years season kind of kicked things off for me and it carried on from there.

One thing that has been grabbing my attention the most (as well as numerous others, judging by how many there are) has been photo sets of the city popping up all over the Internet. One of the saddest and best in these series is one called '100 Abandoned Houses' by Kevin Bauman that's gone way over 100.

A lot more have been popping up lately, too. But my favorite of the ones I've seen has to be by Jim Griffioen on his blog Sweet Juniper. His son wanted to be a robot for Halloween, so he made a Robocop costume out of things he found in his basement. Then he took his son around the city and took his camera along to document it. The pictures turned out fantastic and it made me want to explore Detroit even more.

My layover is only an hour and I'll probably be itching to get home by then anyway, but right now, I wish it were a couple of hours and I could take a look around that city myself.