Detroit Science Center & Green Dot Stables

This weekend was full of fun adventures!

I shared a surprise (early) birthday celebration earlier this morning, and our weekend powered on with new things to do and see throughout Sunday.

With the end of the NBA season came a return of my husband! I joke, but really, it’s so nice to have him around at night and on the weekends throughout the off-season. His availability and free time is like night and day!

To celebrate, Scott and I kicked off many date days/nights to come on Saturday.

Wanting to explore even more of our new state and city of Detroit, we deemed our series of outings #DetroitDateNight and started the bi-weekly to monthly tradition over the weekend. One of us is in charge of going to a new activity followed by a new-to-us lunch or dinner location, and I was up first!

 

Detroit Science Center & IMAX Dome

Many people don’t know this about him, but Scott is a huge animal fanatic. He actually has a bachelor’s degree in Zoology! Fun fact, right?

I heard a friend of ours talking about seeing the latest marine life movie at the IMAX Dome, and knew we had to go while it was still playing. It featured and followed the lives of the gentle giants, humpback whales!

I don’t know if y’all have ever seen a movie in an IMAX Dome before, but the screen completely surrounds you. It’s freaking awesome. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, or I would have totally snapped a photo to share!

We sat right in the middle of the theatre, and it felt like we were really there in person following the journey. It was a great show!

The tickets cost $20 a person, which I thought was a bit expensive for a movie under an hour, but I didn’t realize it also included admission into the Detroit Science Center.

Upon our exit out of the show, we made our way into the main entrance, and I flashed right back to elementary and middle school. I loved visiting the Orlando Science Center on field trips!

We started our exploring in Moneyville. Here, we learned how to play the stock market, and I even created my own form of currency! Fancy, huh?

We could have spent hours exploring the different rooms and floors, but our rumbling bellies hurried us along at a relatively quick pace.

There was so much to play with and test out!

I was very pleased to see an entire section dedicated to health education. Here, interactive games and displays explained the importance of eating a healthy, balanced diet as well as exercising on a regular basis. There were several fitness assessments and games, too!

It was fun to test our flexibility, balance, reactive abilities, and more. Kudos going out to whoever designed this part of the building, with a focus on health and fitness for our younger generations!

We spent a little more than an hour stopping by each exhibit before we realized we needed to get moving. We didn’t have a reservation to get too, but our appetites were raging and we had an expected wait time ahead of us.

We will revisit the Science Center soon enough!

 

Green Dot Stables

Part of our date night included taking Scott to a new-to-him restaurant. I had been to Green Dot Stables one time before, and knew he would love to check out what all the fuss is about.

On my last visit in, I heard that it was opened by a former horseracing jockey, and the location even has traces to old mafia stories. You can read more about that here if you’re interested.

Green Dot Stables is a very casual spot I would recommend for lunch or after a sporting event like a Tigers or Red Wings game. While the dishes aren’t huge, you still get decent portions for your money with a wide variety of slider options.

Being a very popular place to unwind, there is almost always a wait and ours ended up being over an hour. It sounded crazy for a table for two, but our waiting time went by in a flash thanks to their outside patio and $2- $3 drinks.

So, we grabbed a menu and had plenty of time to look it over as we took in the sunny environment on the covered patio. They are best known for their variety of (20) sliders, which all cost around $3 each.

We knew what we wanted to order as soon as we sat inside. Both of us started out with a soup (I got the Chicken Tortilla while Scott picked the Mushroom Barley) and split a side of the venison chili cheese fries.

We ordered three sliders each (I told you… we were hungry!) and shared everything.

Scott’s favorite was the Corned Beef Slider (dead center in the middle photo), while mine was surprisingly the Peanut Butter & Jelly with Bacon (bottom left). The BBQ Bacon Slider with Sweet Potato Mash (bottom right) was a close second though. Everything was really good!

We skipped dessert, took a few home with us to-go (I got an extra BCT by mistake!), and rolled out of Green Dot with a tab just over $30. Talk about bang for your buck!

Scott is more critical of restaurants than I am, so I have to include some of his negative notes. He thought the service was okay, and the sliders were also okay, but that Green Dot would be a good place to come after a Tigers game. I agree!

I would say the first of many date nights in the D this summer was a success!

 

***

Today flew by with an afternoon of driving Scott around before a couple of hours working at the gym. I better get going since it’s almost time to meet a friend for dinner before we both drive over to Bible study. Anddd now we’re all caught up!

Have a great rest of your Monday!

 

» Linking up my Weekend Snapshots with Katie and Erin.

 

Questions of the Day

• Have you ever visited a big city’s Science Center? (And if so, have you revisited as an adult?)

• What was one of your favorite highlights from the weekend?