WEEK 12: ACROSS AMERICA

Hope Memorial Bridge, pylon sculpture; "Guardians of Traffic", over Cuyahoga River, Cleveland OH. Taken by PKSenagore September 6, 2015. All rights reserved

WEEK 12: RUN-WALK-BIKE ACROSS AMERICA STARTS TOMORROW
Segment 30: Bowling Green OH to Strongsville OH
Segment 31: Strongsville OH to Meadville PA
Segment 32: Meadville PA to Bradford PA
 
From Bowling Green the you’ll travel south of Put-In-Bay, a historic vacation resort town on the shores of South Bass Island in Lake Erie, and Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, which is a must–do destination for roller coaster ride enthusiasts throughout the world. The area surrounding the route is fertile farmland; you’ll see soybeans and corn as well as other field crops, dairy cows, beef cattle, and sheep among other livestock. The most important livestock product is milk; wool is also a leading product.
 
South of Cleveland, Ohio, the site of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, as well as Home of the 2016 NBA Champion Cavaliers basketball team and Indians baseball team is Strongsville OH. The family of John D and William Rockefeller, later co-founders of Standard Oil Company, moved to Strongsville when JD was in his teens. The first oil refineries of their pre-Standard Oil Company were built in nearby Cleveland. Rockefeller Park is part of the vibrant city’s Emerald Necklace of metro-parks, an extensive system of nature preserves.
 
The road from Strongsville to Meadville, Pennsylvania takes runners and walkers through rolling hills, past horse farms east of Cleveland into the quaint village of Chagrin Falls, Ohio on the powerful Chagrin River. From there you’ll pass through Ohio and Pennsylvania Amish country areas with its lush farms, horse-drawn buggies, and plainly dressed folk. Middlefield Ohio, just south of the route, is famous for it’s fine Amish Swiss cheese.
 
Meadville is about 40 miles south of Lake Erie and 90 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, known for its steel mills and bridges.  The Drake Well is nearby, site of the first commercial oil well in America.  You will continue on through the Allegheny National Forest to Bradford, a city in the Allegheny Mountains very close to the border of New York State. This city, like Meadville, experienced booming growth in the country’s oil rush years. It is also known as the home of the Zippo Manufacturing Company, which has produced the iconic windproof lighter since 1932!
 
The past few weeks journey will have taken you along the relatively flat and green glacial plains of the Great Lakes region, up into the wooded heights of the Allegheny/Appalachian Plateau. With a liitle more than two weeks remaining of this challenge, next week you will enter upstate New York and the Finger Lakes region, then move on to New England!
 
RUN & MOVE & VACATION HAPPY!

*Full disclosure, Michigan is my home state; West Michigan my favorite place in the world!
I've loved times lived in the Cleveland area too, frequently traveling on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Maryland.  That's why there's a bit of insider detail in this post.

​YOUR insider information on places the route passes through or near, would be amazing to include. Please share.