ride

Today we did a bicycle ride of 20+ miles checking out a new section of bike trail. The new section, we thought, went into downtown Cleveland. It doesn’t and we somehow managed to get off course. Portions of the trail follow the course of the Ohio & Erie Canal and the Cuyahoga River, all greener and more beautiful than one might expect. The big surprise of the day? We spotted a Bald Eagle perched atop the bare upper branches of a tree near the river! The trail emerges into neighborhoods and industrial areas where, in one case, we scaled a challenging hill on a road that was all bad news. We did survive, however, and made it to the northern end of the line –an eastern neighborhood area of Cleveland– where we discovered the large, whimsical sculptural piece we’d hoped to see. The piece, “rotaflora” by Jake Beckman, is in the form of a flowering garlic plant and the flower head is made from bicycle wheels!

Cycling Sculpture

Dinner at home tonight: vegan “ribs” with barbecue sauce (actually quite good), homemade sweet potato fries, and veggies, served with a nice pinon noir. Yum.

Back to work tomorrow…….

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Wood Frog

Today we ventured east to try out the Maple Highlands Trail — a rails-to-trails conversion that stretches from Headwaters Park to Chardon in Geauga County, Ohio. The facility is beautifully designed, provisioned, and maintained. It is paved with asphalt over its nine miles, and is of gentle terrain for those of us who have not been riding our bikes enough lately to be strong as we once were — we know who we are! Shallow slopes, slow curves, woodlands, wetlands, and few road intersections make this a good ride. Many birds and dragonflies flew across the trail as we cruised from one end to the other and back again. Along the way I steered to avoid what I thought at first was a dead leaf, then maybe some poo… at the last second I could see it was a smallish frog. I stopped and turned around to take a portrait of the little amphibian before urging it off of the trail. We encountered one other frog, of another species, on the pavement but it was a little shy and refused picture-taking. It was a good ride on a warm and sunny day. Forecast for this week is cloudy with rain chances so we're glad we fit this in.

By the way, I shot the frog photo with Her older model Panasonic Lumix camera –Her first digital camera– and am very pleased with the result. We're offering the point-and-shoot to my mother as a replacement for single-use film cameras she has found disappointing of late. We'll see how it works out for her.

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PhotonStopper

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Bike ride with giant garlic

Ride of forest and frogs

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