For this years I made my way downtown for the 6:55 AM start!
The event is actually 4 different races, each taking off at different times. the 6:55 AM start is for the 100 mile race.
The motorcycle police were lined up and ready to go.
The lead vehicle was in position.
The workers pulled back the tape holding the riders back, then ran to get out of the way.
And they are off.
It is always impressive how some people can overcome the greatest of obstacles – this rider is starting the 100 mile race, and he has 1 leg.
The early start meant it was chilly – 42 degrees.
During the 62 mile (100 kilometer) race, the riders are headed through the neighborhood street, including many that have small traffic islands in the middle of the road. With a couple of thousand riders coming through it was amazing there wasn’t a huge collision as they ‘parted the seas’.
The highlight is of course the collection of characters riding in the race.
I am impressed when those who are a bit more ‘experienced’ go by in the middle of the pack.
A cool helmet, and a support of the local animal shelter – Pima (County) Animal Care Center.
Racers who are proud of who they are and where they are from.
Snowbird Santa racing off for the North Pole? With the Go Pro he is watching to see who is naughty and nice during the race.
Another beautiful day for El Tour de Tucson. See you next year.
Our last province, British Columbia. As the saying goes, we saved the best for last!
We start out in far southeastern BC at the town of Sparwood. Named for the lumber that went into making spars (poles) for ships, Sparwood is a mining town. As you enter town you can’t miss Terex Titan, one of the largest trucks in the world, now retired in front of the visitor center.
Eastern BC has a number of great waterfalls including those below: Helmcken, Dawson and Rearguard Falls.
The town of Lake Country BC is home to a Kangaroo Farm! It was very cool, especially holding a baby kangaroo.
High above the town of Kamloops is the Myrna Canyon Trestle Trail. Once a railway, now one of the best bike paths anywhere.
In Hope BC there is another path, much lower that goes through the Othello Tunnels. Nearby is the Bridal Veil Falls.
The Vancouver suburb of Burnaby has a great park with these native statues. The persistent rain and fog added to the atmosphere.
Capilano Park in North Vancouver has an amazing bridge (that bounces!) and a forest canopy walk, along with more totem poles.
Vancouver is one of the world’s great cities. Situated on a bay, with islands and the mountains, the views are fantastic. They have height limits on the buildings so that they don’t block the views.
The Museum of Anthropology has the largest native sculpture collection anywhere.
Vancouver is even better from the ‘Lookout’, especially after a nice walk along the harbour.
Vancouver has character!
Our final stop is Victoria, on Vancouver Island (which Vancouver is not). BC Ferries will get you there.
The city is the capital of the province, and has a great history.
It is also home to numerous gardens, including Hartley Castle and Gardens.
Our virtual trips across North America has come to an end, but there is more coming – up next Chicago – History through Maps and Photos…. stay tuned.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike was America’s first ‘superhighway’. Built primarily along a disused railroad right of way in the 1930s, it set the standard for all interstates to come after.
When first built it passed through 7 tunnels as you make your way through the Appalachian Mountains. Originally the 4 lane highway narrowed to 2 lanes for each of these tunnels, but they always caused traffic jams, so in the 1960s they added a second tunnel to have a continuous 4 lanes across the state.
During this expansion there were 3 tunnels that were bypassed by building the highway up over the mountains. Two of these are in a 13 mile stretch that was completely abandoned. About 20 years ago the Turnpike Commission deeded them over to the Southern Allegheny Conservancy, and it now serves as one of the more unique bike trails in the country.
After a 2 mile hike we reached the first tunnel…
At 2500′ long it was one of the shortest on the turnpike…
You likely can make it through without a lantern but we went about 1/2 way in and decided to head back…
The second tunnel further on up is the Sideling Hill Tunnel, which was the longest on the turnpike at almost 6800′ long. Clearly we need to come back with bikes and really bright lanterns.
Instead we enjoyed the graffiti display…
And headed back the 2 miles to the car. It is a really interesting experience walking along this old road, knowing how many million cars, trucks and people had traveled along this same route.
Getting to and around New Orleans has always been an adventure. Situated near the mouth of the Mississippi, the city is essentially surrounded by water and swamps.
While most people likely fly into the airport, or take I-10 from Mobile or Baton Route, the best route into the city by car is from the north across Lake Pontchartrain.
The Lake Pntchartrain Causeway is a 24 mile long bridge. Completed in the 1950s it is to this day the longest bridge in the world over water.
Which results in a funny looking navigation system – we are in the middle of the lake, still 14 miles from shore.
Eventually you get close enough to see the skyline of the city off in the distance.
Once you make it to town you see plenty of the ride share bicycles.
Although this person chose his own unique ride.
The Port of New Orleans is one of the busiest ports in the country, with constant ships coming in off the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi River.
The tugboats stay busy all day.
At the base of Canal Street is the tourist ship The Natchez, a faux stern-wheeler.
The best transportation however are the streetcars.
New Orleans turned out to be a fairly easy city to navigate.
The Ohio Expo Center (aka – State Fairgrounds) has numerous events every weekend, with the past weekend offering such diverse events as an Archery event, Gymnastics competition, a Roller Derby bout, and the circus.
While we intended to check out the roller derby, we ended up at the Shriners Circus.
The ringmaster tried to energize the afternoon crowd.
The local shriners were the clowns, entertaining the kids with their shtick.
With circus’s today retiring most of the animal, the acts were a collection of skilled entertainers – such as the BMX bike riders.
This lady is the perfect spouse, she could change from one outfit to another in (literally) 2 seconds. After seeing this I looked it up on the internet and apparently ‘quick change artists’ is a growing act.
The circus featured an act with a car that would do all sorts of things on it’s own, terrorizing the driver.
A group of trained rescue dogs were the best act – why bring jumps when the hostess can do handstands.
A father – daughter duo did an act where they were 50 feet in the air on these poles that swayed back and forth, until they finally traded poles.
The finale featured a couple of guys on their motorcycles doing jumps and flips.
Given the relatively low ceiling, their jumps took them into the rafters. While not the greatest entertainment we have ever seen, the performers gave their best and the profits all goes to a good cause.
Late December found us back in Chicago again. For this cold, rainy day we made our way to the far (far) suburb of Volo to check out the Volo Auto Museum
As it turned out it was far more than an auto museum.
But first we passed through Niles, Illinois – and the Tower of Pisa (half height replica)
Finally we arrived at the Volo Auto Museum. It is a collection of 18 different buildings and shelters. Volo is unique in that almost everything is for sale so we saw a great collection of classic cars with prices on them.
As we made our way into the first building it was apparent that they had far more than just cars including a collection of nicely restored jukeboxes.
A Zoltar from the movie ‘Big’. There is a large collection of movie props scattered throughout the museum.
Pedal Cars – They had one of the largest collections I have seen (Gilmore had more, but not by much)
Motorized Bicycles – the famed Whizzers.
Kiddie Rides galore
As noted previously, they have a large collection of props from movies, or marketing from the various entertainment groups like Disney or Warner Brothers.
And a small, but classic, camper collection
A great scooter collection.
Snowmobiles.
A very early Ford with tractor drive wheels and ski’s on the front.
But we are here for the cars.
Some of the ‘cars’ are very custom designs – like a Skate Car
Lots of movie and TV cars. All of the cars you see in the movies and on TV are really one of many of the exact same car (often 10 or more). Volo prides themselves in getting one of these original cars.
Usually they are looking for the car that was used for the publicity so it is not all beat up.
Let’s start with KITT from Knight Rider.
Terminator 3
The Beverly Hillbillies Movie
One of the first Fast and Furious movies
The Ecto Mobile from Ghostbusters.
Ninja Turtles
The Bluesmobile.
A more recent Mad Max movie car
A really wacky one from a movie called Son of the Mask
Vehicle and prop from Alien
One of the original 1960s Batman TV show cars.
The Munster’s Car
Christine. Stephen King made us all afraid of this car.
A later Batman movie car
And finally – a prop car for the Flintstones! The Volo Auto Museum is quite the place – well worth a few hours of wandering around.
Having come to Cleveland for the Fuel Cleveland event, we had enough time to check out a few other sights.
I had recently read they had a velodrome in the Slavic Village neighborhood, so on the way into town we went to check it out – only to find that the freeway was closed due to construction.
Never fear – we eventually made it there.
Amazingly there are only 28 velodromes in all of America.
When we arrived late morning there were a few people practicing.
The track had a steel structural frame with what appeared to be layers of plywood for the track.
I was surprised at how steep the banking is.
We watched them run a few laps and headed out.
After the motorcycle event, we headed over to Edgewater Park and Wendy Park, where the restoration of a classic old coast guard house continues.
With a warm July day watercraft of all sizes were out.
Many seemed content just to park and hang out.
The railroad lift bridge was down for an extended time, causing a backup of boats – but the trains over-rule pleasure boats every time.
A sailboat with the high rise apartments in Lakewood in the background.
An interesting mix of old an new – the newer apartments and Lakefront Rapid (light rail) framed by the old Shoreway Bridge and some of the older buildings that have been restored.
A mix of skyscrapers downtown.
Look familiar? It is the light house on this blog’s home page – just not covered in frozen mist.
I am always amazed that the kayaks will get in the same water as the massive ore boats. Note a view of a portion of the Cleveland Browns Stadium on the right.
The top of a Cleveland landmark – the Terminal Tower.
A lift bridge and a skyscraper.
From upper Edgewater the view across the harbor shows just how busy it was on the water.
While on land some artwork makes for an interesting setting for hanging out.
While we were there 4 different wedding parties came along for their photo opportunity. Running of the Brides Cleveland version.
The Hyde Park Blast is a fundraiser for cancer research that has been held in this Cincinnati neighborhood for the last 17 years.
One of the highlights of the Blast is a day of bicycle racing.
While the racing takes place all day we were able to watch two of the 45 minute long races – including the Intermediate Men’s race.
The course was a mile loop up and down Erie Avenue, the main street in the neighborhood.
At the far end they made a turn through a couple of the side streets.
Hyde Park has always been one of the nicer areas of the city. Note in the background someone tore down one of the classic old houses to build a large modern house. While I love this type of architecture, there is a place and this clearly isn’t it – they must have thought they were in Seattle.
Still it makes a nice background for the racers.
Coming down the small hill and making the turn back onto Erie Avenue.
The racing was close throughout.
The intensity is shown on the faces of the racers.
And a final sprint to the finish.
The second race we saw was a women’s race, including the Ohio State championship.
One of the racers took off ahead of the pack and built a 20 second lead.
Only to eventually be caught.
This race too came down the the final sprint. The racer who had broken away only to be caught did manage to hang on and win.
But the real reason I wanted to check out the Hyde Park Blast was the Chariot Racing!
The Chariots are pulled by two humans with one in the Chariot.
Costumes were encouraged.
There were two groups of Chariot Racers – social ones with better costumes, and serious runners who designed for maximum speed.
Although the various running clubs still had some style to them.
Clearly not one of the serious groups.
Sharks might be fast in the water, but not on the streets of Cincinnati. Still the Chariot Races made a great finish to a good day of the Hyde Park Blast.
RDZ Photography 