Cleveland Metroparks

We were fortunate that the eighth annual Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Asian Lantern Festival was extended beyond its original August 24th end date, since we had just returned from our second trip this summer. Nine years ago, we enjoyed a similar event in Columbus, Ohio, during the winter (December 30, 2016, Ohio Lantern Festival at the Ohio State Expo Center and Fairgrounds), but we had never attended this annual Cleveland summer event. We put together this blog post to show the good time we had when we visited the zoo with our sons on the evening of Saturday, August 30, 2025.

We remembered enjoying an acrobatic show many years ago at the Ohio Lantern Festival, so we were very pleased to learn that the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Asian Lantern Festival also had live acrobatic performances.

It was fun seeing the lanterns at the time when daylight melts into evening darkness, and the lights become more brilliant. In addition to the lighting displays, we were fortunate to see the elephants, Amur tigers, grizzly bears, and wolves.

The Asian Lantern Festival had interactive displays, and while we were writing this blog post, we learned that there were more interactive exhibits this year than in the past. We had fun standing on sensor platforms and hitting large buttons that activated the displays.

It was great that the festival was much larger than we expected. We enjoyed the event, and expect that we will go again in the future.

We hope you enjoy the photos and videos from our visit, and that they encourage you to visit the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo next year for the ninth annual Asian Lantern Festival.

I put together this blog post to share some of what I saw while visiting eight area galleries in February 2025. There is a variety of artwork presented, which will appeal to the different tastes of different people. I hope this encourages you to visit those galleries that have items of interest to you.

Thank you to the following galleries for an enjoyable month visiting:

1. Wednesday, February 5, 2025 - Picasso and Paper - Cleveland Museum of Art

2. Friday, February 7, 2025 - ArtLens Gallery - Cleveland Museum of Art

3. Friday, February 7, 2025 - Gala Porras-Kim: A Hand in Nature and Harminder Judge: Bootstrap Paradox and Birthing Beautiful Communities: Dear - moCa Cleveland

4. Friday, February 7, 2025 - Possibility for Repair and Opening Night for Back in the Dayz - Cleveland Institute of Art

5. Saturday, Friday 8, 2025 - d.a. levy: Subversive Printmaking in 1960s Cleveland - Zygote Press

6. Friday, February 14, 2025 - Opening Night for Love Is Resistance - Cleveland Institute of Art at Transformer Station (Cleveland Museum of Art Remote Location)

7. Friday, February 28, 2025 - North Chagrin Nature Photography Club - Cleveland Metroparks

8. Friday, February 28, 2025 - Opening Night of the 2025 Student Independent Exhibition - Cleveland Institute of Art

If you have limited time, I recommend prioritizing visiting the Picasso and Paper exhibition and the two Cleveland Institute of Art exhibitions at their main campus building and at Transformer Station.

I am grateful that we have so many galleries to enjoy in our area. I hope you take time to visit the institutions I mention in this blog post! Have fun!!!

Welcome to the 2024 Trail Challenge, a guest led program where you are challenged to complete 10 trails in 10 different Cleveland Metroparks reservations on your own in 2024! Explore new trails, move to better health, discover the wonders of nature, and earn a prize.

This Cleveland Metroparks Trail Challenge 2024 blog post covers the trails I biked (November 3rd and November 9th), and hiked (December 7th through December 23rd). I had already "met the challenge" back in February, but decided to end the year by completing the rest of the land-based trails. This blog post is a continuation of my February 15, 2024, blog post.

Between my Trail Challenge week in February 2024, and my 12 trails in November and December, I have completed every single land-based trail listed for the Cleveland Metroparks Trail Challenge 2024!!! That is a total of 27 trails (15 in Feb + 12 in Nov/Dec = 27 trails) in all 18 of the Cleveland Metroparks reservations listed for the 2024 challenge! (There were an additional four water routes listes that I did not do.)

I updated the image from February 2024 with the additional dates of the reservations that I biked (blue) in November and hiked (red) in December.

I hope this blog post encourages you to get out on our local park trails to do the Trail Challenge in 2025! Please go out and explore our great, award-winning Cleveland Metroparks!

The first day of fall had already arrived the Sunday before, but in Cleveland, we stretched the summer fun one more week by having three great events over the weekend of Friday, September 27, 2024, through Sunday, September 29, 2024:

• Friday - Sunday, September 27 - 29, 2024 - IngenuityFest 2024: Era of Ascent
  I attended Day One and Day Two of this three-day celebration of Northeast Ohio creatives.

• Friday, September 27, 2024 at 8:00 pm - PechaKucha Night Cleveland Volume 42 at IngenuityFest

• Sunday, September 29, 2024 - The 19th Annual Remembering the Sights and Sounds of Euclid Beach Park

The following blog post includes my photos and videos from the weekend, along with event information and what others have shared. I hope this blog post encourages you to learn about the year-round activities of the organizations that planned these events.

I hope this blog post encourages you to attend future fun events hosted by Ingenuity Cleveland, PechaKucha Night Cleveland, and Euclid Beach Park Now!

Welcome to the 2024 Trail Challenge, a guest led program where you are challenged to complete 10 trails in 10 different Cleveland Metroparks reservations on your own in 2024! Explore new trails, move to better health, discover the wonders of nature, and earn a prize.

My wife and co-blogger, Julie, and I have completed the Cleveland Metroparks Trail Challenge in the past, taking most of the year to do it. This year, I decided to do something different, and complete the challenge in one week. I picked the first full week of February (5 days: February 5-9, 2024) to hike "... in 10 different Cleveland Metroparks reservations ..." In total, I hiked five days on 14 trails in ten reservations, and worked out at a gym on four of the mornings. I also ended the week on Saturday, February 10, 2024, by attending a Northeastern Ohio Orienteering Club event where they had developed a new map for the Geauga Park District's The West Woods.

What follows are some trail resources, followed by information and photos/videos from the trails I hiked. I hope this blog post encourages you to get out on our local park trails in 2024!

This, my fifth HCM blog post, is about my being interviewed on January 22, 2024, by Spectrum News 1 reporter Kimberly Perez. It is a continuation of the last HCM recovery blog post, and a result of my cardiologist, Eiran Gorodeski MD, MPH, recommending that I share my story on television. I refer to this as my second "recovery" blog post of my HCM series.

Hiking on the Buckeye Trail, starting two months after my open-heart surgery, was a big part of my recovering my strength, stamina, and balance. When I was contacted to be interviewed by Kimberly Perez from Spectrum News 1 on Monday, January 22, 2024, I thought it was very important to have the interview take place on the Buckeye Trail. I suggested she conduct the interview while we hiked together on the Buckeye Trail to the Bridal Veil Falls Scenic Overlook in the Cleveland Metroparks Bedford Reservation. These Falls are on a beautiful section of the trail that is easy to reach by a short walk from your car.

I arranged for my wife and co-blogger, Julie, to join us to take photos of the interview process. I am so glad that she was able to attend, since she captured the beauty of the area with her photography. The day after I posted photos, the Buckeye Trail Association shared my Facebook post with their 11,000+ Facebook followers.

The temperature was in the 30s when Kimberly Perez and I starting talking while walking down the trail. She used her smartphone to record my answers to her questions, as I told my story of past backpacking trips; my debilitating HCM symptoms in the spring of 2023; and my recovery, which led to my backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail.

On Saturday, February 10, 2024, at the same time I was heading to a Northeastern Ohio Orienteering Club event, Spectrum News 1 posted their video about me. Please watch the video and accompanying article.

I am already planning more adventures in 2024, which are possible thanks to my successful open-heart surgery at University Hospitals.

Thank you to The City Club and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) for the Tuesday, October 11, 2022, "... unique tour inside NEORSD’s sewer system at Edgewater Beach." The following is about the sewer tour, along with additional information about NEORSD and its water outfall near Cleveland Metroparks Edgewater Beach.

I am so glad that I saw @TheCityClub's September 27th morning tweet, so I could sign up to be one of the 20 participants for the Tuesday, October 11, 2022, tour.

I was glad to read that so many people were interested in the 50 Years of Clean Water Investment event that The City Club had to create a waiting list! For years, I have been interested in seeing what was beyond the Edgewater entrance gate of the sewer. I was grateful to be one of the few fortunate people who were allowed to go on the tour.

I decided to create these three blog posts to remind me of the three days of fun I had over Father's Day Weekend. The text is the same at the beginning of all three, so I encourage you to read the tweets within the posts that tell the story of:

2 of 3: Fun Father's Day Weekend: Saturday -- Service Project & The Longest Day of Play

Read tweets below in this blog post to learn about:

• Northeast Ohio Orienteering Club (NEOOC) service project at Richfield Heritage Preserve
  Be sure to click on the links in the tweets to learn about both of these great organizations!
• Cleveland Metroparks  “The Longest Day of Play” at Euclid Beach
• Cleveland United Way 2-1-1 service
• Plastic Free Lake Erie
• Step Forward - Ohio's designated anti-poverty agency for Cuyahoga County with early childhood education programs, adult skills training, and other services
• Especially large waves on Lake Erie on this windy day. Be sure to view the videos of the waves.
• Cleveland Metroparks Euclid Beach concessions serving Honey Hut Ice Cream
• Drum circle and dancing
• Ohio Sea Grant

It feels appropriate that the first blog post I am writing since my Continental Divide Trail backpacking adventure in April 2022 is about a National Trails Day^® event -- the Buckeye Trail Association's Biggest Day Hike, which took place on Saturday, June 4, 2022.

It is great that the Buckeye Trail Association (@HikeTheBT) invited everyone to participate in celebrating Ohio's long trail by pledging to travel a segment of this over 1,400-mile trail for National Trails Day^® 2022. This is the third year for the Buckeye Trail Association's Biggest Day Hike, which had the goal of having hikers/biker/horseback riders collectively complete the ENTIRE Buckeye Trail in one day.

Thank you, American Hiking Society and their sponsors/partners, for National Trails Day^®!! It is a great way to bring awareness of all the great trails we have in our country.

It was great to see so many US trail organizations participate in National Trails Day^® 2022. In addition to being a member of the Buckeye Trail Association (@HikeTheBT), I am a member of several other trail organizations.

I hope you find the resources I shared in this blog post useful as you find our own trail adventures. Happy Trails to you!

This blog post is about the creative and historical events I attended Friday, September 24, 2021, through Sunday, September 26, 2021:

• moCa Cleveland (Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland) and more in University Circle
  
  In 2020 (pre-COVID-19 vaccine),  I stopped going to moCa Cleveland, so in 2021 (after being fully vaccinated), I had gotten out of the habit of looking to see what the new exhibits were at the museum. Therefore, I greatly appreciated receiving the following Twitter direct message on September 6, 2021, from @moCaCleveland reminding me to visit: "Stuart, have you been in to see our new season? Just an fyi we have a new Sr Marketing Director . . . moCa hopes all is well."

• Ingenuity at the Lake
  
  When I first arrived at Ingenuity at the Lake, I did not know what to expect. I ended up really enjoying some of the yard games with my family, and of course talking to people from different organizations providing services to our community.

• 16th Annual Remembering The Sights & Sounds of Euclid Beach Park
  
  My son, Kevin F. Smith, displays his Euclid Beach Park memorabilia collection every year. Learn more details about the history of this amusement park, and how Kevin and my wife, Julie, are on the board of Euclid Beach Park Now.