Rust Belt Monster

As we wrote in our other Social Distancing blog posts about exploring our local parks, we continue to be fortunate to have had no illness or death in our family.

We are writing this blog post to:

• First, encourage ourselves to learn about and explore parks that we have not visited before, or further explore past favorites.

• Secondly, capture some of what we learn to share with others now, and to use in future years to remind us of how fortunate we are to have so many great park systems in our area.

We are both sad about activities we love being canceled for 2020, but we want to acknowledge all that we have gained in terms of time together learning about local parks and about each other.

We start this blog post with information about how to be safe in the parks during this coronavirus crisis. We also want to note that we added at the end of the blog post information about camping opportunities in our local park systems.

Arrived VERY late -- I had a blast!!!

As I drove through the rainy streets of Cleveland on a very late Saturday night, February 24, 2018, I was not sure I should attempt to attend the last hours of Brite Winter 2018. I had been invited by the Communications Department of the Cleveland Museum of Art  to attend the preview for Eyewitness Views earlier that evening. Thus, I had already had a very fun and very full evening.

It was very late, very dark, and raining, but since I have greatly enjoyed attending Brite Winter for years, since it was a small event in 2011, I decided to see how the event's evening ended. It ended up being the best decision I could have made!

As I parked my car, I saw the bright lights of Brite Winter transforming the underbelly of the Main Avenue Bridge to a festive area full of music and fun! It was great to be with all these people, dancing and having fun into the late evening.

On September 8-10, 2017, the largest annual cycling festival in the United States, NEOCycle, was held in Cleveland at the Cleveland Metroparks Edgewater Park, through the support of the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission! This was my third year attending what has become a great Cleveland tradition!

Record high temperatures at Brite Winter 2017!

On Saturday, February 18, 2017, Mother Nature did not deliver the normal sub-freezing temperatures that we have come to expect at Brite ​Winter. This year, we had record high temperatures across the area.

Unfortunately, Julie was not able to attend this year, so I went just for some of the evening activities this year with my son. Congratulations to the Brite Winter leadership on their eighth successful year! 

Since we have enjoyed Brite Winter for several years now, we are posting our @sos_jr tweets and photos/videos as our way to thank and congratulate the organizers of this unique outdoor winter event in Cleveland.

We visited Brite Winter 2016 during the evening of February 20, 2016, but the full event went from 3:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. on the West Bank of the Flats. We did not get to see everything, so be sure to look at some of the tweets we shared from others.

My weekend plans went from nothing planned to really fun when I learned about two free events via Twitter.

I had not planned on writing this blog post about the weekend. I even told people I talked to at the events that I was not going to write about the weekend. However...

After the weekend was over, I decided I wanted to capture the information I learned about local adventures. I also wanted to thank NEO Cycle and the Cleveland Pops for the good time.

2015 Ice Fest at North Coast Harbor
AND
Brite Winter - "Cleveland’s Premier Winter Art & Music Festival"

What more can we say? Cleveland knows how to have fun in the winter! We had a a great time at these two outdoor winter spectaculars!

Cleveland Technology + Art = Ingenuityfest Weekend!

Every year, the tribe of people interested in supporting artists and technologists in our community comes together in an annual gathering called Ingenuityfest. 2014 marked the 10th anniversary of this gathering.

My goal is to share a little bit of Ingenuityfest 2014. To truly experience it, though, you must attend this annual Cleveland event.