Date: 9/24/10

Location: Cleveland

Miles: About 12

Interactive Map link: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=205179460621910658689.00047e2d503e0d085caef  For some reason this map shows the entire country.  To see the skate route you have to zoom in on Cleveland. 

YouTube link:  http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=buschmantom#p/u/0/Cg5RvLolMzU

This was a relatively short skate with lots to see.  The basic route was East 55th St, to Euclid Ave to Martin Luther King Drive, then I followed the lake front parks north back to East 55th St.

The skate includes passing three major medical centers.  Skating around these large medical centers makes it obvious why Cleveland is world famous for it’s medical research and care. 

Cleveland clinic:

The Cleveland Clinic is regarded as one of the top 4 hospitals in the United States and ranked number one in cardiac care for 15 years in a row.  Cleveland Clinic's annual research expenditures exceed $258,000,000.  The Clinic has approximately 1700 salaried staff physicians.  Half the skate along Euclid Ave is spent going past the buildings of the Cleveland Clinic

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/default.aspx 

Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra since 1931

http://www.clevelandorchestra.com/ 

University hospital building under construction 

1032 beds, 24,000 physicians and employees make it the second largest private sector employer in Ohio.  Wall Mart is the biggest with 53,000 employees in Ohio.  Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, Ireland Cancer Center, and MacDonald Women’s Hospital are all part of University Hospital System

http://www.uhhospitals.org/ 

Case Western Reserve University Library

Case Western Reserve University sits on a 155 acre campus.  It is a research oriented college with 10,000 students and an annual operating budget of $897,000,000.  In 2010 Case was rated as the best college in Ohio by US News.  According to the Case web site it awarded 2,673 degrees in 2008-09 session and had 2,745 full time faculty.  That’s one faculty per student graduated.  If the average student is there for 4 years that would be 4 students to 1 faculty ratio. 

http://www.case.edu/ 

 Western Reserve historical society

 http://www.wrhs.org/ 

Cleveland Botanical Garden

http://www.cbgarden.org/visit/gardens.html 

 The Cleveland Art Museum looking across Wade Lagoon:

The Cleveland Museum of Art opened in 1916 and was built at a cost of $1.25 million dollars.  I don’t think you could build the back stairs that go down to the Wade Lagoon for that amount of money now.  From their web site “We are proud to be one of the world’s most distinguished comprehensive art museums and one of northeastern Ohio’s principal civic and cultural institutions.”  The museum has 43,000 works of art.  From Wikipedia “The museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holding of Asian and Egyptian art.” General admission is free.

 http://www.clevelandart.org/  

Cleveland Natural History Museum

http://www.cmnh.org/site/Index.aspx

Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center
From thier web site.  “The Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center is the 5^th largest VA in the country serving almost 95,000 Veterans each year.”  There are 153 VA hospitals across the country with a total of 304,099 employees.  The Cleveland VA Medical Center is currently involved in a massive construction project.

http://www.cleveland.va.gov/ 

The Cleveland Cultural Gardens line both side of Martin Luther King Dr (Previously Liberty Blvd.) for about 2.5 miles.  There are 23 gardens representing 23 different ethnic groups.  This is a picture of the Mahatma Gandhi's 2000 lb. sculpture in the Indian garden that was dedicated in 1995.  The bronze statue was cast in Calcutta India.  The onsite engraving was done by Sheffield Monuments in Chagrin Falls. 

http://www.tccgf.org/    

http://www.sheffieldmonuments.com/about-us.html 

Lake Erie is the thirteenth largest lake in the world.  Lake Erie has a surface area of 9,940 square miles and an average depth of 62’.  

Church of the Holy Oil Can

Date: 3/24/10

Location: Miami and Miami Beach
Miles: 19
Interactive map link: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=207801916428195819012.000482a7706a182a6d484
Note: Interactive map shows more miles than my phone.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOVSlSQQohw&feature=youtube_gdata 

The Miami Sky Line

This was a very nice skate. I was trying to do a loop out to Miami Beach and back. I couldn’t get across the I 195 Bridge, so I continued up to NE 79th St. I tried going west of US 1 once but didn’t like the area. I did a similar skate to this one with my son Wes a few years back. We started in the late afternoon and the skate turned into a night skate. That was a fantastic skate.


Ideas for next time: See other Miami skate


Disclaimer: Skating is inherently dangerous. Skating on streets and sidewalks makes it even more dangerous. This blog is not a recommendation to try these ideas. This blog is my diary of my skates. I do not recommend anyone else try any of these ideas.

Date: 3/25/10

Location: Miami
Miles: 10.8
Interactive map link: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=207801916428195819012.000482a7706a182a6d484

Video: : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOVSlSQQohw&feature=youtube_gdata

The Miami Sky line

The area from the Miami River to the Venetian Causeway along the shore is primarily fancy brick.


Ideas for next time:
1: Skate the Key Biscayne Causeway
2: Follow the monorail/bus line south and then take the bus back
3: Follow the monorail/bus line north and then take the bus back
4: Try the North Miami Beach area
5: Hollywood Beach north of Miami Looked interesting from the boat

3/23/10

Fort Lauderdale
Miles: 11
Interactive Map
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=207801916428195819012.000482bee2f53623d6c49


Yacht being towed up the New River

This wasn’t a very interesting skate. I kept getting stopped by the airport and freeways. The New River is interesting. It is a narrow tide river that has more yachts per mile than any other river I have ever seen. Many of the yachts are so big and the river so narrow they have to be pulled up with two tug boats, one in front and one in the back.

The area where my skate starts and ends is the center of town. There are lots of tour boats and water taxies. There is one giant tour boat called the Jungle Queen. It is bigger than the yachts yet is able to navigate up and down the river at a pretty good clip. It would be fun to ride on it and watch him navigate the sharp turns.

Ideas for next trip:
1: Take a water taxi and take the Jungle Queen diner tour.
2: Starting the same area go north on US 1 then south along the ocean and back on SE 17th St.

Disclaimer:

Skating is inherently dangerous. Skating on streets and sidewalks makes it even more dangerous. This blog is not a recommendation to try these ideas. This blog is my diary of my skates. I do not recommend anyone else try any of these ideas.

3/21/10

West Palm Beach Florida:
Miles: 16.25 Google maps indicates more than my phone.
Interactive map of skate
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=207801916428195819012.00048255cde01d7930bc2

West Palm Beach

Royal Palm Way Bridge (Route 704) Photo taken during the skate

West Palm Beach

Royal Palm Way Bridge (Route 704) Photo taken from water.

I started my skate on US 1 near Hibiscus St. US1 is also called S Quadnile Blvd. This is a very upscale shopping area full of shops and restaurants. Most areas in the downtown vicinity have good sidewalks. However, there are areas of fancy brick sidewalks. The sidewalk right on Lake Worth is nice and wide but has a few feet of bricks every so often. The trip going north on 1 was narrow so so sidewalks.


Next time idea 1:
Start in same area and skate south on 1 to 98 also called Southern Blvd. Take that to S Ocean Blvd and go north to the 704 bridge or the Flagler Memorial Bridge. Bridges are always a gamble because you don’t know if they will be skateable or not.

Next time idea 2:
See if it’s possible to skate across the Jack Nicklaus Dr Bridge. Then go north up A1A to US 1 and south back to the start.

Disclaimer:
Skating is inherently dangerous. Skating on streets and sidewalks makes it even more dangerous. This blog is not a recommendation to try these ideas. This blog is my diary of my skates. I do not recommend anyone else try any of these ideas.

Cleveland when we left.

Arrived at my hotel around 12:30 and started a skate around Squaw Peak at 1:30. The yellow highlight shows the route. There are many sections of sidewalk with gravel and stones. On E Cactus Rd I got a little too confident going through a gravely area and took a minor spill. Somehow I managed to dump my latte on the ground just ahead of placing my butt there. Other than a wet rear end I was fine. The orange area was an area of very rough pebbly paved sidewalk. I almost took my skates off to walk it but I kept on going assuming it would get better over the next rise. The red area is an area of no sidewalks and unskatable rd. I walked that section.

The route goes through mostly nice neighborhoods with lots of places to stop for food and drinks. The entire skate is on sidewalks with only one section of brick sidewalk along North Cave Creek Rd

The mountains are mostly surrounded by developed areas. So, access to climbing them is very limited. There were sections along Cave Creek Rd with direct access to the mountains with no fences, signs, or homes. I didn’t take advantage because I knew I had to finish the route before dark. The intersection of N 32nd St and E Lincoln there is access to a very interesting part of the mountains. There is also a shopping center nearby so it would be possible to get there by car.

Here is a link to see the area in Bing http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/#5003/o=&a=&s=w/5872/style=be&lat=pkv2d7&lon=5nypmg&alt=418.439301&z=13&pid=5874

The route was almost 20 miles. That and a few rough stretches wore me out. Back at the hotel I discovered a hot tub attached to the pool. Very relaxing.

The mountains come right down to the sidewalk in some places. I had the chance to climb up this hill.

I studied maps and decided to take the all purpose trail along the Arizona canal to Scottsdale. Well, the trail turned to gravel at N 24th St. So I took N 24th St south to W Camelback Rd and took that east to Scottsdale. N 24th and W Camelback is a very fancy large shopping area. This intersection and Scottsdale would both be good places to skate for a few hours. They would also be good places to find a pair of pre worn out $200 blue jeans.

From Scottsdale I took N Scottsdale Rd south to Tempe. Tempe is a college town just south of the Salt River. There is a dam just downstream of Tempe so this part of the Salt River actually has water in it.

The Arizona Canal has Paved trails along side from N 24th St. I don’t know how far it has paved trails to the north west. In this photo to the right you can see the top of the big ditch.

This 20 to 30 foot deep ditch runs next to canal for miles. It must be for flood water. It seem strange to see a water way so close to a ditch that is way below the water level of the water way. In this area the Arizona Canal is on the high ground so it seems like a viaduct.

Trip ideas:
Park in the shopping center at N 32nd and W Camelback, and hike up the mountain.
Spend a half a day skating the Scottsdale area.
Follow the Salt River around Phoenix as far as possible.
Spend half a day skating Tempe.
See how far the Arizona canal goes northwest.