ypsi~dixit

To each their own, but Y. would never go to a "fitness center." There aren't gonna be any fitness centers in post-apocalyptic Ypsilanti, and there won't be any flab, either, I can assure you.

I find it foolish to pay money and go act ridiculous on some expensive machine instead of tweaking one's lifestyle so as to make biking or walking an integral part of one's natural life, thus honing one's body, exercising one's heart, and toughening up in general.

Not to mention not polluting. Once the path is rebuilt Y. will get a good snigger out of the quintessentially American spectacle of an oceanlike parking lot, full of polluting cars, around the fitness center, with cars jockeying for the prized spots close to the door.

Pure-D foolishness.

Don't mean to be a grouch. It's just so wasteful: a huge building, full of utilities gobbling up energy, surrounded by swarming cars on a vast impermeable parking lot--

--when all you need to do to get fit is git up and get moving, day by day. Become a peripatetic walker like the AF. Or an intolerably self-righteous bike evangelist, like yours truly. It just makes me shake my head.

Not so grouchy, methinks... The whole "circle the lot for 5 minutes trying to hunt down a 'good' parking spot" thing is ridiculous. Just park and walk the 200 feet, fer cryin' out loud. The fact that it's a health-club parking lot is the cherry on top of the Irony Sundae.

Take $3.20+ per gal. gasoline, and the perpetual parking crisis in Ann Arbor, and it just doesn't make a lick of sense anymore to drive to get to downtown. Just ride... you get there in the same time, never have to struggle for parking, etc. etc. Besides, maybe folks'll meet their neighbors along the way instead of ignoring them while dialing your phone at the stoplight, insulated in the glass-enclosed spaceship.

I have to wonder - is the reason people talk on their phones so much while driving an indirect result of the unintentional social isolation of driving a car? Or maybe a societal ADD/ADHD thing, where we need constant conversational stimulation?

I read a quote somewhere this week that seems fitting:
"If you want to cross the country, fly in a plane.
If you want to see the country, drive a car.
If you want to see what the country is like, ride a bike."
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Saw your post about your ride down to Ohio via Platt/Dennison - having come back from that direction a few times myself, I'm super-bummed that they fenced off the psych hospital for demolition. Looked like a pretty cool abandoned building to explore, but I never got around to it before they started smooshing it. Ever get a chance to see the insides?

Andy: the cherry on top of the Irony Sundae.

:) well said.

Yes, I've seen the interior. Briefly. Then we were escorted politely yet oh so firmly off the grounds by the guard. It was bleak and sad and spooky inside as you'd expect.

You saw the new fence too? I saw it last time I went down to visit my folks. That's some serious fencing, there. Something like an 8-foot-high chain link. I"ll take a picture tomorrow.

Sounds like you like that west-of-US-23 rural route too. It's my favorite. Never a soul on Dennison Road. Big sky. Big quiet. Big peace.

While there's certainly irony in driving to the gym to walk on a treadmill, or ride an exercise bike, consider that you can't "adjust your lifestyle" to play racquetball without adjusting your lifestyle in a way that takes you to the gym. And racquetball is fun. QED. :)

Going to the gym isn't necessarily buying into a social ill. In a day when slinging around hay bales and sheep or pushing a plow behind an ox just isn't an option in most people's lives, some people like to go lift weights. Some people find that going to the gym to exercise is more pleasant, come February (not to mention safer) than spending an hour walking or biking on icy roads. Some find meeting friends at the gym a more sociable activity than just walking to your errands. And some just prefer/enjoy the activities that you generally have to go to the gym (or similarly special facility) for - like racquetball, or tennis, or swimming.

So, while I certainly don't hold any less disdain for people who demand the closest parking spot to the door of the gym than you do, I will submit that going to the gym is not, in and of itself, a ridiculous activity.

p.s. Lots of good psych hospital pictures on flickr, if you poke around...

Will they be replacing the trail? Or is it permanently gone?

Murph: Reasonable points, all.

I reserve my inalienable right, however, to object strenuously to "vitamin water," especially with cutesy copy on the bottle.

Try arguing me out of that one.

Tom: I really don't know. Next time I pass by I'll jot down the construction company name and (politely) ask them.

It would be most silly for them to leave a gap of 400 yards.

I wondered what was going on there... Is this just beyond the overlook on the B2B Trail at the St. Joe's? Or is that section simply not yet constructed? It was confusing.

By the way, Y., you are indeed an inspiring bike zealot. Now I am biking nearly every day, all due to your shining example of sustainable transportation. Kudos!

Lisa: Wow, what a nice thing to say. That is very flattering. Well, good for you for biking!

I think the overlook section is just not built yet, or maybe they just sort of let that (admittedly less-traveled) section kind of lie fallow.

I like the sound of "bike zealot." :)

The pristine, just-finished Border to Border bike path in front of the WCC has been destroyed, forcing Y. and other bikers to stop, walk through the weeds to the road, and bike on one of the most dangerous roadways in this region of the county. Y. is ticked.
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