2025 International Auto Show Adventure

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the Detroit international auto show is back again, and this year I went with my parents after getting some discount tickets. We were there for the first day that it was open to the public, and boy was it fun. This year they had off-road driving demos from Stellantis and Ford, and there was a speedway thing with 3 of the car brands (Volkswagon, BMW, and I think Ford). This was possible since the vehicles demonstrated were electric and electric vehicles don't have combustion emissions to put into the enclosed area. I'll get to the details of those when I get to them. Electric vehicles were kind of the big thing at this show since this is what all the industry is pushing for. I'm not super interested just because our grid isn't ready, I don't have charging in my garage and getting wired is not something I want to go through, and public charging isn't very common, but good for you if it's your thing.

The absolute first thing we saw was a drifter van, a van with a kitchen, shower, bed, and storage, perfect for those weirdos on youtube that live out of their van. We saw it because it was on the way to the Stellantis display.

First real exhibit we went to was Stellantis. I liked sitting in the Jeep Wagoneers and Fiat 500s. Some of the jeeps were hard to get into, which was fun. There was this one car with LED trim with an option to change the light colors, which was really cool.

It was also the 20th anniversary of stow and go, and there was this game to see if you could fit everything in the stow and go van, and I was part of the game. We did it with 12 seconds to spare and so we won trucker hats with the brand on it, and I wore it on top of my fedora. Now for the big thing, the Jeep off road experience. We went up and down an uneven hill, up and down steps, up and down a  45 degree incline hill, through a narrow passage with us riding the edge of the wheel, on a 30 degree tilt leaning over, and sopping on a peak. We were able to ride in the pink jeep, which made my mom happy. Since it sits so high up my dad had a little trouble getting in and out, but it was really fun. When we were going down the steep incline I was being held in completely by the seat belt which was a pretty crazy feeling, like something out of an amusement park ride. I took a first person video from the front seat, and then afterwards I took some video of the obstacles so I could overlay them. Check it out here.

Also, while we were waiting in line, there was this cut-out hanging out in the trees to startle people. Kind of funny. I also got a soft pretzel around this time, with a pitiful amount of cheese sauce for dipping. I don't know if the vendor was running out or was just being stingy, but oh well.

Right by the stellantis exhibit was a switching gears show, where they play the first episode and have some give aways or something like that. I had already seen the episode at home so it wasn't a big deal, but it was pretty cool that a TV show had a presence at a car show.

By this time dad was getting tired, it was maybe an hour and a half into our time there but he expires kind of quickly now. All he really had to do was sit in the back seats of some cars, but that wouldn't have been the most sustainable thing. Mom and I looked around at some different exhibits looking for a place to sit, and we found the DTE electric car display. There was a trivia scavenger hunt that once all answers were found would get you an opportunity to play plinko to win a slinky, ice scraper, tire gage, tire stress ball, or a tote bag. Where the prizes were set-up the ice scraper was the hard one to get, but I ended up winning it. Cool I guess, even though I would have liked the pressure gauge more. Still pretty cool.

We were pretty close to the Ford exhibit, so we looked around at some of the fords. They also had an off-road demonstration for their off-road vehicles, and we would have done that as well but the line was super long (like at least an hour), and while I wouldn't have minded it would have been too much for my parents for what would have largely been the same experience we got from jeep (only real difference was this bridge thing, video below). We mostly just looked around at different trucks and watched a little swag giveaway. One of the cool things was the Detroit Lions football helmet car and a pickup truck with some Lions decals.

This is about when dad sat down at the DTE display with the nice seats. Mom and I got him a soft pretzel and bottle of water, and I got dipping dots. Dad got a fair amount of cheese, so much that it was spilling over. Mom and I went around to some of the other displays. I was able to sit in a BMW, and right close to it was some prop cars from movies and TV shows. The big ones for us were the Jurassic Park jeep, station wagon from National Lampoon's Vacation (complete with Aunt Edna on the roof, a leash out the back from Edna's dog, and a Wally World bumper sticker), and Magnum P.I.'s Ferrari. My mom's family used to go on a lot of family road trips and when National Lampoon's Vacation came out they saw it multiple times since it reminded them of all their family trips.

The next thing we did was we went to the luxury car display. These were the Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and other super luxury brands. Mom and I aren't like super into these, but it is pretty cool looking at cars that are worth more than our house. Here are some of the pictures I took.

And then there was this James Bond car.

Outside the luxury car display was a place where you could get an alcoholic drink and some porches (at least I think it was porche). There was one that had this cool paint job that I took pictures of.

Since we didn't get enough time at stellantis, we went back and sat in a couple more vehicles. I got my picture with the utility van, which is always fun for me. I just think utility vans are neat. I also got in this pick-up truck and the rear view mirror wasn't actually a mirror, but was a screen that showed the feed of a rear view camera. Really cool. I called my mom over to look at it and she thought it was cool too.

I think our next thing was a combination of Volkswagon and GM. Not a whole lot of interest in VW, but they did have a van that was a little reminiscent of the VW bus. At GM we got a picture of the new Silverado for my mom's friend and I looked around and found another van life van.

Now I don't remember when this happened exactly, but at some point we went to this display that was the Detroit grand prix, and michigan science center. The science center was full of activities for kids; build a dinosaur skeleton, build a foam car thing, play mario kart for switch, build duplo cars, play with hotwheels and tracks, and some other things I'm forgetting. I know as a kid I would have really loved that "build a car" thing. The Grand Prix was pretty cool, they had racecars and a victory podium for taking pictures. They also had a real F1 racecar for kids 12 and under to climb into. I wanted to do that since once I was able to sit in a real stockcar racecar, but oh well, I did get a fun picture on the winner's podium.

This was also right by the car speed demonstration. I didn't do it because the lines were kind of long and it was getting late for date, but it was still pretty cool and I got some videos of cars going fast.

[insert picture]

Time for the last event of the day. Dad was really tired and ready to go home at about 4PM, but there was still the show car display (cars owned by enthusiasts in a local club that look cool). Mom and dad just stat down at the cafe while I went to the display in hall E. Lots of cool cars, check them out here.

And then there was this monstrosity of a license plate.

I promised them I would be very fast, and I think I spent maybe 10 minutes at most. After that we went back to my parents and then went out to dinner at Chilies using the gift card mskate and I got them for Christmas. All in all it was a really fun day time, even if there wasn't nearly as much swag as there was in previous years. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Evensvill trip 2012

Here's the compilation of all my daily blogs from the trip. If you read your 3 minutes, you will have already read them. Even if you did, read the forward for some background and some things I forgot.

Forward.
Here's some back ground. I have one female cousin who lives in Michigan, same state as me, who came with us down to Indiana. I have 2 female and 1 male cousin, 2 aunts, 1 great aunt, one uncle, and one great uncle. I had fun with my great uncle but I can't remember the day and I forgot to log it. He has an amazing garage and lives where my grandma and her brother and sister grew up. The old home stead. There was also a time when there was a thing about most people outgrow there awkward phase by the time they're in their late teens. I said I out grew that a while ago, but my aunt that I stayed with said that I'm still rather awkward. Yes but I'm not awkward about being awkward. Now for the fun time.

7/11/12 Trip day 1

Woo hoo, first day of family trip to Indiana. This time my grandparents didn't come so we were able to do the trip in 1 day, 10 hours. We watched bang theory season 1, and king of kong, fist full of quarters. There is this awesome video game store that was on the way, but moved so now it isn't. Still had to stop though. It's called Play N Trade, and they have everything, from NES to 360. It's amazing. Well when we got there, it was closed. When I checked the web site, there wasn't anything about it being closed today. There was a sign that said "closed July 11th, reopen the 12th." It's Wally World from National Lampoon's Vacation.

Once we got there, we visited and had fun. We went out to a local restaurant where I had a brain sandwich. Yes you heard me right, and no I'm not going zombie. It's deep fried pig brains, with pickles, on a bun. I can't imagine it'd be the healthiest thing, but it's my treat when I come down. Here is a picture

Here's something that was interesting that happened soon after we got back from the restaurant. There was a fight that broke out in front of my cousin's house. I didn't see it, just heard it. I then saw the aftermath with the cops. There were 5-6 cop cars at one time. And then there came an ambulance. It was crazy. Don't get action like this at home. It's scary but in a weird way cool. Until tomorrow.

7/12/12 Day 2

Today was fun. We went to Holiday World in Santa Clause Indiana. We've been going there, well the family has, since it was just Santa Clause world. We have video footage of the family on the couple of rides that were there when they were kids. Well a lot has changed since then. Here's what we did.

We went on the Legend, a fun wooden roller coaster. We went on the log flume after that. I rode with my girl cousins, and they didn't want to get wet. Well the right way to not get wet is to put the heaviest person in the back so the water flows under the boat, but they put me, the heaviest person, up front. Well since they wanted to use me as a shield, I decided to get them really wet, while still keeping my pants dry. I leaned as far forward as I could. I got them wet. We went on the Raven, world's number 1 wooden roller coaster. It was fun. Went around to different rides in fourth of July and Halloween. After lunch, we went to the water park that's there as well, and it's included. I enjoyed the park. There were some slides. One that is like a toilet bowl where you spin around in a funnel thing. It's fun.

After the water park we went to Thanks Giving. We were going to do the Voyage, voted America's best roller coaster. Unfortunately there were problems that caused us to not go on it. I went on the turkey gobbler, which is basically a moving shooting gallery. It's fun. There is this glass blowing shop in the park and it's fun to see what they had. My brother bought a glass sword a couple years back. They had drinky birds. Here's a picture.

After we got home I had a standing contest with my cousin who's a dancer. Black belt vs dancer, who can stand on 1 foot longest? We went on for about 10 minutes. My foot was killing me, but I worked through the pain. She on the other hand, her calf and hamstring were starting to hurt. Her mom interfered and just stopped her, since she knew I would win. I did win. Now we're watching lilo and stitch. Until tomorrow, later.

7/13/12 Day 3

Boy today was fun. First we went to Adventureland where we went go carting and mini-golf. When go carting I won both times. I lapped my brother and cousins both times. Then at mini-golf my one cousin won at 48, my brother right behind her with 48 1/3, and then my other cousin and I tied for last at 51. I watched most of Monty Python's and now for something completely different with my other cousin who likes the Pythons as well. After that we watched their turtles eat crickets. It was funny because the turtle was chasing them.

After that we went to a Chinese buffet. I had lots of Steak. They had good teriaki steak. I made myself a rice ball, or what is close to one that I make one. Just steamed rice and salt in a bowl because I don't feel like making a ball in front of my family. Afterwards I had an ice cream with a cone I dipped in their chocolate fountain. Great idea on my part. After the buffet I went to my aunt's who's cleaning out magazines. I looked through them to see if there was anything of value. I found that the children's digests had adventures of tin tin serialized so there is probably some money in them. After that we were going to watch National Lampoon's Vacation, but the DVD wouldn't work. My one cousin was all "I ain't watching no stupid vacation movie. Marty Moose, I hate that Disney Channel crap. Derp Derp Derp." I told him "this movie is rated R for swearing and sexual content." That shut him up quick. When the movie wouldn't work we watched this Betty White DVD of her series "Life with Elizabeth." She is funny. Untill tomarrow.

7/14/12 Day 4

Today we didn't do much. I hung out with my cousins most of the day. I looked up the prices and what not for my aunt's magazines. If we wanted to, I was going to rent National Lampoon's Vacation through Amazon instant video for $3, but there wasn't enough interest. I was the only one who wanted to watch it with everyone, but no one else wanted to, so I just saved $3. Oh well.

It wasn't until we had our picnic at my aunts did things become interesting. We had everyone over at her house where for starters the grill didn't want to light. So instead of grilling we George Forman Grilled. They were fine. I went to church with my other aunt and great aunt. They have a really nice church. The big highlight for me for the night was when my uncle thought one of my cousin's friends was my brother. Edited to hid names, here's how the conversation went.
Uncle: "[brother] I didn't recognize you."
Friend: "that's because I'm not [brother]"

It might have been a had to be there thing, but was funny none the less, and it's my blog so I'll say what ever lame story I want. We packed up to be ready to leave the next day. So until tomorrow.

7/15/12 Day 5

Today was head home day. We left at about 7:20 my time. My cousin who came with us and I watched big bang theory season 2 the full ride back. We stopped at play n trade. Turns out that the place is a family business and there was a funeral on the Wednesday that I was going to go initially. I got this Play Station pinball game for $3 and a set of 5 gameboy game cases for $1. It seemed like there inventory shrunk since the last time I went.

Now we're home. Cousin with us is really into video games. First I had to try my new game to make sure it works, which it did. After that she and I played super smash brothers melee. It's been forever since I played so I was quite rusty, and she's never played, so we were at rather even playing fields. We were called to dinner after about 30 minutes. When her parents came to get her, we all had fun talking about our trip for an hour or so. Now to put this all together in a full blog. Laters.

Alright, hope you had fun. I know I sure did. This has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.