Stories indexed with the term ‘recreation’

At the first of three public meetings on the future of the Huron River held Wednesday evening at Forsythe Middle School, the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP) committee’s vision for the Huron River’s future was presented. It reads in part: “The river and its publicly-owned shoreline and riparian areas create a blue and green corridor across the city that contains restored natural areas and adequate, well-sited public trails and access.”

It was that sentence that prompted the first whispered interactions between The Chronicle and other folks at our table: What, exactly, does “riparian” mean? Russ Miller, a rower who’s now hooked on the sport after taking it up only a couple of years ago, had a notion that it had to do with the place where the water meets the shore, but it was his PALM handheld computing device that provided a definitive answer: interface area between land and a stream.

The Forsythe meeting itself could fairly be described as an interface between two groups as different as land and water: people keen to see Argo Dam preserved, and those who wouldn’t mind seeing it disappear. [Full Story]

On Sunday afternoon, eight 3-person teams from Traverse City, Ionia, East Lansing, and Ann Arbor descended on the “Thunderdome,” to compete for top honors in a double-elimination bicycle polo tournament. The Thunderdome is a parking structure near downtown Ann Arbor, which generally sits empty on Sundays. And on this last Sunday, it was empty and cold. The Chronicle could not disagree with the assessment of one polo player: “It’s like a meat locker in here!”

Adam Say, who works as a mechanic at Ann Arbor Cyclery on Packard Street, expressed some confidence before play started that his team would prevail – there was a spot on a shelf at the bike shop with a label on it to hold the trophy. But at the end of the day, the trophy – constructed from spoke protectors, wheel hubs, and a dog bowl – went back to Dan’s Bike Shop in Ionia, Michigan, with the team who finished the tournament undefeated: Seth Higbee, Gary Ferguson, and Tim Heyboer. [Full Story]