Go for a Swim!

Calvin Wilks is ready for a swim at one of plymouth's beaches. You know you are too!

Summer is great here in Plymouth. One of the best ways to get out and enjoy it is swimming! Lifetime fitness has a great pool with big waterslides and an indoor pool too! But you do have to pay to use it 7.25 for adults and 3.50 for kids, that’s a special rate for Plymouth residents.  New Hope pool is also great with high dives and the classic outdoor pool vibe. However that pool closes on August 18.

The indoor pool at life time is sweet.

In my opinion swimming in one of Plymouths 8 lakes is way better anyways. It’s completely free of course and there are many well maintained beach areas.  The lakes are safe and clean, even though they’re real murky. 

The pavilion and beach at West Medicine Lake Park! A great place to swim, barbeque or pop wheelies on Radio Flyers

The best beach in Plymouth is West Medicine Lake Park. Its scenic and comfortable, the water stays shallow for quite a ways, there is a great playground, and a basketball court with a tall hoop and a short hoop so you can show off your best slam dunks. Another nice thing about this beach is it has an area where you can pull boats up and park them on the beach. You’ll always see plenty of fishermen at this park fishing both in the lake and on the little pond behind the park.

The Beach at West Medicine Lake Park, Nicest on the Lake.

Other good swimming areas:

French Park, good beach, but you have to park way up at the playground and ride a little shuttle train thing down to the beach, which is actually kind of fun.

East Medicine Lake Park: Nice but in a weird place by all these mechanical buildings, also windiest side of the lake.

Parkers Lake Park: This place is nice but last I saw it was completely underwater due to high water levels.  The Trick Water Ski Show by “Shockwaves” takes place at this park and its totally sweet.

Or Your Backyard:

Well there’s just a small sampling enjoy ‘em while you still can!

Ride around Medicine Lake

A great picture of Medicine Lake from the path. Photo Credit goes to TwinCitiesRealEstateBlog.com

  

With the weather changing and summer finally coming biking season is on. Plymouth has no shortage of bike paths, but my favorite in Plymouth is the medicine lake loop. The ride is perfect for a summer afternoon. Its about 8 miles long and there are good sidewalks for most of the way.  The course is slightly hilly but not terrible.  It’s a highly populated path and you see people running, biking, skateboarding, rollerblading, and even doing those crazy cross country skis on wheels.

Plymouth Locals enjoying a ride around the lake on bikes and blades.

A few highlights on the course:

You pass by 3 great parks: East Medicine lake Park, West Medicine Lake Park, and French Park all of which have beaches for swimming playgrounds for the youngsters.

You can travel up into the “City of Medicine Lake” if you want to take a quick detour. This is a fun area that is a peninsula completely surrounded entirely by the lake. There is a park and some interesting homes.

You get to go over 2 really long bridges through the wetlands and swamps. They are really fun to ride over but tough on rollerblades and skateboards. Also the gnats are pretty thick on this part of the trail.

The famous turtles of East Medicine Lake Park

The portion of the trail that conincides with East Medicine Lake Boulevard is super nice. There are no homes in between the road and the lake and you really get a nice scenic view of the lake from here, especially at sunset.

The trail is easy to find. It’s a loop so it doesn’t really have a start or finish but I always kind of think of the starting point as 36^th ave and Zachary Lane. From there I usually head in a clockwise direction following east Med Lake BLVD to South Shore Drive and then to West Med Lake Road. Then you head around the horn to Northwest Blvd and either around or through French Park. If you get confused just follow the shoreline.