There's a Pool in town...

This one goes out to my buddies in St. Cloud, MN (aka 'the cloud') who swim (or even bike). See back in the cloud, there used to be a freaking sweet 50 meter outdoor lap swimming pool called Municipal Pool (or just Munice). It was old and historic. Generations of people learned to swim in this pool including my parents, it was a great asset to the community of STC. Problem is, the pool needed updates. It was losing money and it wasn't managed effectively. The leadership in the city (and most likely the majority of the tax payers) didn't see it that way, and thought that the area would be better served if they filled in the pool and made it into a parking lot. (I still can't believe it). So that's just what happened.

Here in Bend, there's this place called Juniper Park Fitness center where they used to have a 45 meter outdoor lap swimming pool that was wearing out, needed updates, much like munice in STC. But instead of giving up, and filling it in, they spent millions, lengthened it to 50 meters and widened it to have 8 foot lanes. They also put a removable lid on it so it can be used in the winter. Duh, what a brilliant idea. Holy crap, that's not the end of it, they also built an awesome weight room and spinning room (a room 100% dedicated to cycling spin classes with a 50 inch plasma flat screen TV in there - I'm not kidding, I going to push for live TdF coverage during the tour!). There is a big difference though between Bend, and St. Cloud. People here are generally fit and want their kids to have a healty lifestyle, and that's where they want to go in their free time, unlike in the people in the cloud are going to the buffet and then the bar to drink MGD light.

The pool in St. Cloud was one of the reasons that brought me back there after college, and now it's gone. Someday maybe Dave Kleis (STC Mayor, and also my former drivers ed teacher) will regret that decision, but I'm sure most of St. Cloud probably doesn't care, which is too damn bad.

This completes my rant for the day. Snow report: it's blizzrarding up at bachelor, and we have 1 inch of snow in town.