St. Joseph Hospital to Ford Lake

Overlook at Ford Lake

Observation Deck at Ford Lake

Boardwalk over lake, water on both sides Eagle Crest Golf Club on the left

Series of islands with arched bridges jutting out into North Bay on Ford Lake

Very nice colored concret bike trail crossing markers

Me down below



This trip was taken with my bike writing friend Deb A, we began at the campus of St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, the trail winds around the grounds and where the trail crosses a driveway they have really neat color concrete markings to help alert drivers.  I'm going to call our engineers tomorrow who are working on phase II of our non motorized path and discuss this type of marking for where the path crosses the US23 freeway exit and entrance ramp.

After winding around the campus the trail passes by Eastern Michigan University football stadium, the Convocation Center then veers off through the woods for a straight mile or more and then it's onto city sidewalks around the Eastern Campus, along Huron Drive, some residential neighborhoods and into Riverside Park and Frog Island.  Up above the river at street level is downtown Ypsi where we wandered around for a bit then headed south out of town and to Ford Lake near Bellville.  Ford Lake was created by Henry Ford (the auto mogul) who damed the river into this made made lake to use the hydro electric power for one of his plants.  The lake and area affords ample recreation opportunities with a trail around much of the lake, picnic and hiking areas, boating, kayaking, canoeing and a spectacular golf course Eagle's Crest.  It was a great ride and on Thursday the weather was perfect around 70 degrees, no humidity and abundant sunshine.  Round trip was just a hair under 15 miles.

If you'd have asked me two weeks ago, this ride would have seemed like a far away dream as I had not been able to get around much at all on foot let alone on a bike.  I saw the orthopedic surgeon last week who did total knee replacement on my left knee in 2007 and the xrays showed bone on bone with my right knee.  I had asked him if I was a candidate to get gel injections so that I could have some relief until after the campaign is over but he did not think that they would be of any help as the cartilage and cushioning is gone.  The pain is caused by rough bone edges against rough bone.  I'd just had a cortisone injection into the knee joint a couple of weeks prior and also an injection of steriod system wide and am taking a prednesone dose pack.  When that ran it's course I got on a low dose of prednesone daily for a short time until I can schedule surgery.  It sure is difficult to schedule surgery while I am feeling so very well at the time, however I don't believe this will last more than a few weeks and if I'm lucky a few months.  I am thinking right before the election in the fall of having this done.  Much will depend on scheduling surgery and my over all health.  If I can wait as long as December or the first of the year I will, however I believe that is being overly optimistic. 

It's a tough call right now, I am in the throes of an active political campaign for an August primary election and a November General election.  I run an aggressive door to door campaign and visit each home in the township, it's tough to abruptly halt that, however where I was a couple of weeks ago I wasn't doing anybody anygood, now I'm semi on the mend and got several hours of campaigning in this weekend.  One good thing is that I get to ride my bike, exercise, keep flexibility and range of motion up with my knee/leg and campaign at the same time.  Double duty...  Decisions, decisions...what is a girl to do?