Admission to State Parks and Forests will be free on May 22nd and 23rd, which is great if you want to be around hundreds of other people taking advantage of a time sensitive offer. Who can be blamed for wanting to visit the beach for free, rather than shell out $14 for parking during the season?
Still, we have many consistently free or low-cost recreation options that do not involve long drives. The Riverfront is one of them.
The paved and unpaved trails along the Connecticut River are among my favorite places to walk and bike because they are typically not crowded, except for days when major events are happening there. The unpaved trails are fine for walking, though my point of comparison is always the trails that I walked on during an adventure course in college. These were places in Eastern Connecticut that barely qualified as trails, were big on root structure (as in, roots leaping out of the ground), and were suddenly intersected by spring flood rivers. I don’t remember signing a waiver, though today, I’m quite sure I would have to do so before each and every class. Anyway, the Riverfront trails are cakewalk, or shall I say, Sculpture Walk. Continue reading 'Down by the Riverside'»
The final community listening session for the Planning & Zoning Commission will be Tuesday evening at Rawson School. So far, there have been sessions at the Pope Park Rec Center, United Methodist Church, and Metzner Rec Center. Each session has focused on proposed land use for nearby neighborhoods. Continue reading 'Proposed Land Use for Hartford’s Neighborhoods'»
Growing up, I spent a lot of time watching motorcross races. My brother and father raced, and I later drove one or the other to the hospital for x-rays. Being surrounded by trophies, crutches, and helmets was routine. I’d also been dragged along to watch skateboarding, running races, and BMX tricks. So, when I received this press release from the Beat Bike Blog, it did not take more than a second for me to confirm that this Sunday I would be hanging out at Riverside Park to watch some bike racing:
If you’re not doing anything this Sunday, I urge you to come down to
Riverside Park in Hartford and check out a cyclocross race. Here’s my
little blurb about it:
Presented by the Central Connecticut Bicycle Alliance and CT-NEMBA,
cyclocross returns to Hartford this October at Riverside Park. If
you’re racing, enjoy the picturesque setting next to the Connecticut
River while wallowing in the mud and take in views of the Hartford
skyline as you trudge up the 40 foot high levee. The first race is at
10:00am and the last one starts at 2:00pm. It’s free to watch, so stop
by. Central Wheel, REI, Hooker Brewing Company and Ghostship Clothing
have signed on as sponsors.
For those of you unfamiliar with cyclocross, it’s a form of bicycle
racing with bikes that kind of look like road bikes, but they have
wider, knobby tires and cantilever brakes, instead of calipers. The
races take place on off-road courses, usually in parks and that are
generally artificial. They aren’t as difficult or as long as mountain
bike courses. The courses also feature barriers that require the
riders to dismount and jump over, and a “run up” (or several), which
is a steep section that requires riders to dismount and, well, run up.
Cyclocross races take place in the fall and early winter, after the
road and mountain bike racing series are over. This form of racing is
about seventy or eighty years old and grew out of the idea of giving
bike racers something to do to keep fit in the off season. Continue reading 'Crash-laden Fun on Sunday'»
After a few days away, I returned to find obnoxious (but fairly routine) comments littering the Topix forum that one is routed to from the online Hartford Courant.
On my trip, I was thinking about civic pride and the need for community and cooperation between neighboring towns. I am not talking about these qualities on a political level, but on a personal level. There is community here, within the city, but it’s not something that gets much press. Crime and corruption are made public. Poverty and illiteracy are treated as mascots for my city.
What does not make the news are the minutiae.
One Friday night I gathered with a half dozen women to eat local pizza in the host’s dining room. We wolfed down three pizzas and laughed. Nobody got shot or stabbed.
Last week, I ventured with a friend and two of her children to Colt Park. We were hoping to catch a women’s rugby game. Though it seemed to be canceled, we picked up some delicious goodies from Modern Pastry, watched runners cross the finish line at the Hartford Marathon in Bushnell Park, and then headed to La Paloma Sabanera for an actual lunch. At the coffee house, we ran into more friends. Again, nobody got shot or stabbed. Continue reading 'Words vs. Pictures'»
I like to avoid talking about race, mostly because whenever it comes up, people get defensive, they shut down, and then nothing productive comes of it. So, I don’t really want to go there, but there is here.
I think it’s really hard to talk about transportation without pointing out the obvious– only a particular demographic is fuel addicted in America. When the idea of reducing private motorized transportation comes up in certain circles, it’s deemed radical (or too radical). It should not be. The reality is that many Americans do not own automobiles. If, however, a person lives in an area where the ethnic and racial groups with low rates of vehicle ownership do not tend to live, there can be a distorted idea of how life is for everyone everywhere.
On Friday there was a little bit of flooding. By Saturday afternoon, the dirt trails were basically impassible, unless you felt like walking about seven feet through knee-deep water.
Comments (2) 
Admission to State Parks and Forests will be free on May 22nd and 23rd, which is great if you want to be around hundreds of other people taking advantage of a time sensitive offer. Who can be blamed for wanting to visit the beach for free, rather than shell out $14 for parking during the season?
The final community listening session for the Planning & Zoning Commission will be Tuesday evening at Rawson School. So far, there have been sessions at the Pope Park Rec Center, United Methodist Church, and Metzner Rec Center. Each session has focused on proposed land use for nearby neighborhoods.
