Parks

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!

We put together this Niagara Falls blog post to share the photos and videos of our three-day trip on Monday, November 11, 2024, through Wednesday, November 13, 2024. The first two days, we explored Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. On the third day, we drove along the Niagara River exploring parks, first on the Canadian side and then on the United States side of the river.

It felt strange saying we were going to Canada the week after the United States election, but we had planned this trip out of the country before the turbulent election, and did share that we were coming back after three days.

We have gone to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, in the winter before, so we knew what to expect and had the proper warm clothing. We have memories from when we were first married of driving through a blizzard along the southern border of Lake Erie on our way to the Falls. This year, we had much more pleasant weather, except for some rain on the evening of the first day.

In recent years, we have only been visiting the Niagara Falls, New York, USA, side, so it was great to see what new attractions and improvements have been made by the Canadian Niagara Park System. In particular, we were amazed by the newly opened (in 2021) Niagara Parks Power Station and its tailrace tunnel, which opened in 2022.

We hope you enjoy our photos/videos, along with what we learned during our visit to Niagara Falls, Canada, and the Niagara River.

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!

On Saturday, August 31, 2024, we had a great time with our son, Michael, learning about the history of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Malabar Farm State Park. At the farm, we went on both the Big House tour and the farm tour. The farm tour consisted of a narrated ride around the farm property on a tractor-pulled wagon. We then visited the many animals in the Main Barn.

After an enjoyable morning at Malabar Farm, we then had lunch at the Mohican Lodge and explored some of Mohican State Park.

We put together this blog post to share with others our photos from the day and links to park resources. It brings us joy to add this trip to our other travel blog posts. This fun and interesting day was like having a mini-vacation!

Princess Cruise Lines 10-Day Denali Explorer - Tour CB3

Itinerary:
| 3 Nights on Land (Fairbanks, Denali) | Wilderness Rail Service to Whittier | 2 Days Scenic Cruising (Hubbard Glacier, Glacier Bay National Park) | 3 Ports (Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan) | 1 Day At Sea | End at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |

We have always planned on taking a trip to Alaska! For years, Stuart has heard how much Julie wanted to visit the places she learned about from her parents, who traveled the state of Alaska in their camper in the 1980s.

We want to thank Direct Travel Leisure Sales Advisor Mari Ann Casamatta (Office: 440-602-8050) for her assistance in finding the perfect cruise for us. We explained our interests, and she was able to find a cruisetour itinerary that worked with what we wanted to see on our first-time visit to the state of Alaska. This was also our first-time cruise experience, and throughout this blog post, we link to web pages and maps that were helpful in making the most of it. (Be sure to take a look at some of the websites we recommend that might be of interest to you if you are planning a trip to Alaska.) With Mari Ann's assistance, all the details for the air travel and the Princess Cruisetour were successfully rearranged from the trip we originally planned for August 2023 to this year's trip in June/July 2024.

This blog post describes our daily activities, followed by our photos and videos from each day. Our Princess Cruise Lines 10-Day Denali Explorer Alaska Cruisetour went from Sunday, June 23, 2024, through the morning of Wednesday, July 3, 2024. Our Alaska cruisetour included a three-day land journey, followed by the seven-day Alaska Voyage of the Glaciers Cruise on the Grand Princess^® ship. We also added an extra day to our journey on Thursday, July 4, 2024, to explore Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

NOTE from Stuart: On January 2, 2024, I was asked by the University Hospitals Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute Senior Media Relations Strategist to have my story added to The Science of Health blog and the Heart & Vascular Patient Stories sections of the University Hospitals website for February -- American Heart Month. I provided the photo for the story, and approved the story before it was published on the hospital's website.

The reason that I chose to publish this HCM recovery blog post today, Wednesday, February 28, 2024, was because the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association announced that today was HCM Awareness Day.

As we come to the end of American Heart Month 2024, I am glad to have permission from University Hospitals to share their blog post about my HCM recovery story with you on my blog.

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.

On June 11, 2023, I ended my third Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy blog post questioning whether I would have a fourth "recovery" blog post:

Well, my idea of writing an HCM (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) recovery blog post changed from a doubt to a must-do when my cardiologist, Eiran Gorodeski MD, MPH, recommended I share my story with others on television. He had University Hospitals Senior Media Relations Strategist Carly Belsterling contact me on October 16, 2023. After an initial interview with her, I met with TV-3 News Special Projects Reporter Lindsay Buckingham on December 5, 2023, at a special location. Dr. Gorodeski was also interviewed for the news story, and he shared how I have a specific type of heart failure called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that affects about 750,000 Americans.

In this recovery blog post, I will share an update on the great progress I have made, information about the significance of the interview's location, and then the actual interview that was broadcast, along with its companion article.

On October 29, 2023, I started writing this blog post, but I was delayed in finishing it until the middle of December due to another family emergency and some back-end work on my sosAssociates.com website. I am glad that I have now completed this blog post, since the topic presented is part of a long-term trend I have written about in the past. It deals with the important work of improving the City of Cleveland's (and this region's) waterfront and park systems. The plan presented is very long-term, so I wanted to capture today's ideas, and compare them with the future reality.

PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 39 - Untold Lakefront Stories took place on October 20, 2023, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Cleveland's NorthCoast Harbor.

This particular PechaKucha Night Cleveland was very unique!! It first presented the interesting history of Cleveland's Lakefront from a variety of cultural viewpoints, and then showed how the future will build on this past as outlined in the newly updated Cleveland’s North Coast Master Plan.

I also include in this blog post what was recently shared at follow-up presentations that took place after PechaKucha Night Cleveland Untold Lakefront Stories. We are fortunate that so much was shared online from these follow-up events.

The following are the sections of this blog post:

• Past Ingenuityfests Showed Hidden, Spectacular Lakefront Views!

• Images of Today's Lakefront

• October 20, 2023 - PechaKucha Night Cleveland: Untold Lakefront History
  Five Stories Told by Clevelanders for Clevelanders

  I loved the topic, Untold Lakefront Stories, and I enjoyed learning from the five presenters about their good work:

  1) Cynthia Connolly - Chair of the Lake Erie Native American Council
  2) Fran Stewart - Ohio Freedom Path (Underground Railroad)
  3) Keshia Johnson Chambers - Greenbook Cleveland
  4) Ferian Young - Asiatown Migration
  5) Andrew Sargeant - The Whole History

• October 20, 2023 - PechaKucha Night Cleveland:
  First Public Release of North Coast Lakefront Draft Master Plan

• October 20, 2023 - City of Cleveland Beautiful Night Views

• October 23, 2023 - Cleveland's North Coast Master Plan Virtual Draft Presentation

• November 1, 2023 - The City Club of Cleveland:
  Happy Dog Takes On Cleveland's Lakefront Development

• November 11, 2023 - Thank you, PechaKucha International, for your kind words!

• Related Blog Posts

I hope to look back at this blog post in future years after the project is completed and I am standing on the lakeshore enjoying the new lakefront of Cleveland.