Trails

We are so glad that Stuart saw Share the River's re-post on social media of the City of Euclid's announcement about the grand opening of the upland expansion of Sims Park on Saturday, November 15, 2025, at 10:30 am! If you search our past blog posts for "Share the River," you will see why we recommend people follow them on social media and look at their blog posts. It is a great way to learn about fun things happening in our community along our waterfronts (Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie)! We were particularly interested in this opening, since we had walked the Euclid Lakefront Trail and explored Sims Park on Friday, August 29, 2025. We put this blog post together to share:

• What we learned about the history of the Sims Park lakefront area.

• Our experience on our Friday, August 29, 2025, walk along the Euclid Lakefront Trail and through Sims Park.

• The presentation at the Saturday morning, November 15, 2025, New Upland Sims Park expansion Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony.

• Our Saturday afternoon, November 15, 2025, exploring the new Upland Sims Park expansion and the Euclid Lakefront Trail.

We hope this blog post will encourage others to explore the new Upland Sims Park Expansion and the Euclid Lakefront Trail. As a community, we need to continue to open up our lakefront and expand natural areas. We are excited by the progress that we have written about for over a decade.

We had not vacationed in New Hampshire since 1997, so when Stuart finished a month-long backpacking trip in southern New Hampshire, Julie joined him for an August 17-23, 2025, vacation in New Hampshire, Vermont, and on the USS Enterprise. We put this blog post together to share some of what we explored during this trip.

We want to note that this vacation was after two long backpacking trips that Stuart had already completed this year. Stuart's month-long Appalachian Trail backpacking trip is where he finished the final few miles in Massachusetts before hiking all of the Vermont section, and 50+ miles into the New Hampshire section.

We are sharing our photos and trip observations with you here to encourage you to explore the places we visited.

We had not been to Colorado since 1998, so when we were invited to attend our niece's wedding (celebrating Anna Bonebrake's marriage to Thomas Porricolo), we took the opportunity to extend the trip to include Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, and the Denver area. We were on this exciting trip from Friday, June 13, 2025, through Monday, June 23, 2025.

Due to our other travels, we had to delay writing this blog post, but we enjoyed putting it together as our way of remembering the good times we had in Colorado in June 2025. We are sharing our photos and trip observations with you here to encourage you to explore the places we visited in Colorado.

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!

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.

I am so glad that I was able to attend the 10th Annual Buckeye TrailFest at Shawnee State Park, which was held Thursday - Sunday, August 17-20, 2023. As I wrote in my last blog post, Summer Vacation 2023: South Haven, Michigan and Merry-Go-Round Museum, I have been very busy since recovering from my April surgery, but I still wanted to take the time to put together this blog post for two reasons that are important to me:

1. I want to encourage others to learn about the Buckeye TrailFest and the important work of the Buckeye Trail Association in maintaining the longest trail in any one state in this country.

2. The main purpose of this blog post is to thank the organizers and presenters of the Buckeye TrailFest 2023 for sharing their talents to create a successful event. I am very grateful for all their efforts to make a welcoming and educational event for all attendees.

I look forward to more journeys on Ohio's long trail -- the Buckeye Trail -- in my future.

We wanted to share our summer vacation with you, so we created this blog post to capture our experiences in and around South Haven, Michigan, and at the Merry-Go-Round Museum in Sandusky, Ohio. Originally, we had planned a trip to Alaska for August 2023 that we decided to cancel due to the uncertainty about Stuart's recovery following his surgery. We thought it was best to make our 2023 vacation within a day's drive from our home. South Haven is just over four and a half hours from Cleveland.

We organized this blog post around Stuart's photos and videos about different parts of our vacation:

Monday, July 31, 2023 - Monday, August 7, 2023, Michigan Vacation

• Sunset Inn Bed & Breakfast

• South Haven, Michigan

• Waterfront: Lake Michigan & Black River

• Day Three: Wednesday, August 2, 2023 - Kal-Haven Bike Trail

• Day Four: Thursday, August 3, 2023 - Day Trip to Saugatuck, Michigan

• Day Five: Friday, August 4, 2023 - Van Buren Bike Trail

• Day Seven: Sunday, August 6, 2023 - Michigan Maritime Museum

Monday/Tuesday, August 7 - 8, 2023 - Exploring Sandusky & Huron, Ohio

• Day Eight: Monday, August 7, 2023 - Afternoon/Evening Exploring Sandusky, Ohio

• Day Nine: Tuesday - August 8, 2023 - Merry-Go-Round Museum

• Day Nine: Tuesday, August 8, 2023 - Afternoon Exploring Huron, Ohio

We hope you enjoy learning about our vacation!

We were very grateful to be able to go on this wonderful vacation after the events that occurred earlier this year.