An International City Forged from Steel

If you ask the majority of the people in Lorain County and the surrounding area what the city of Lorain is known for it would more than likely be the steel mill and the cultural diversity. With the International Festival this weekend I thought now would be a perfect time to ride into Southern Lorain and do a post about the steel mill and how it turned Lorain into the "International City".

22 Miles.

A Monday Evening Ride (Lorain)

It is Monday evening at 7:30 pm and it is a warm 85 degrees. The sky is partly cloudy and there is virtually no chance of rain. Time to pedal.

Sometimes I like to take a break from the history of a certain area and just take in the beauty of how it sits today. You can find beauty in even the most run down places and in other areas you would not think to look. I enjoy taking photographs of things that are very rarely photographed, mostly local. Things that you could "Google" and not find one single picture of. Angles that you do not see from the road. This post takes us back into the city of Lorain, but this time not for a history lesson. This time we will look at what is there today, maybe from a different point of view than you are used to.

Let's take a ride.

13 Miles

Avon Lake Power Plant/Beach Park Station

I usually gauge my route by the temperature and wind speed. If the temperature is below 75 and the winds are high I tend to stay south in the more residential area. The reason? All of the houses block the wind for an easier ride and with the temperature being lower I try to stay away from the lake as much as possible, because believe it or not once you hit Route 6 the temperature drops about 10 degrees and the wind is much higher making the ride much more difficult. That being said, my favorite route is down Lake Road (Route 6, Erie Avenue, Liberty Avenue and whatever else it is known by). On June 1st the weather was perfect for a nice, long ride down Lake Road, but this time I went East. This is also the first route I photographed using an actual camera, so the quality should be slightly better.

25.48 Miles.

Kayaking the Vermilion River

This week I tried something new. I have lived in the Vermilion/Lorain area my whole life and have never kayaked on the rivers. So yesterday my wife, sister and I decided to rent kayaks on the Vermilion River. So here are some pictures of that and also the Main Street Beach at sunset.

5 miles.

"A Good Place to Drop Anchor" (Vermilion Part 3)

In this final post for my Vermilion ride we will be taking a look at a few historical sites in the original part of the city known as Harbour Town.

The Vermilion River was first explored by the French during the late 1600's into the mid 1700's. This is where most of the names in the area derive from, including Vermilion, which means "red" due to the red clay in the area that the Native Americans used as paint. People started moving into the area in the early 1800's from Connecticut. During the American Revolution many homes were burned in that area and the residents were offered land in a previously unsettled territory. This new territory was known as the Firelands (for obvious reasons), and present day Vermilion was part of that newly offered land.