The Piqua Bike Path

I've talked about this run many times and have attempted to photograph it even more than that, but for whatever reason, I've been foiled in each attempt. I was finally able to pull it off over the Easter weekend. I woke up early Sunday morning and hit the trail. I've attached a map of my wee hometown for reference. The thumbnails correspond to the points on that map and are in order from left to right, top to bottom... but I'll take a stab at walking you through it.

I head east on Park Avenue from my parent's new house on Beckert. Nearly a mile down the road, I turn right onto the Canal Path trail. I immediately come to 1) Frantz's Pond which I've written about previously. Actually, if the image were larger, you could see the moon hanging in the sky over the treeline. I then continue on across High Street and into 2) French Park. When I was growing up, this was a junk yard. You wanted nothing to do with this area as the train tracks were behind this and off limits. According to my dad, this was a popular place for hobo camps back in the day. A left turn takes you down the hill and into downtown and eventually to the 3) Great Miami River. This stretch goes on for a while along the levy and under the 4) 25-A bridge until you eventually make it to the overgrown tree section of this trail. We would hunt for crawldads under that bridge and along the cement embankment into the river. Did a lot of fishing here as well growing up. Our first house was basically a block away from the Miami. Once you've gotten into the wooded part, you see that the path you're running on was actually the old tow path for the 5) Miami-Erie Canal. Segments remain along with the remnants of old locks along the way. I come out of the woods and into a roadside park, under State Route 66 and up into 6) Swift Run. We spent a lot of time up along the canal in our younger days. Fishing, swimming, riding bikes. You couldn't construct a better, more elaborate playground than the one we had in our backyard. How lucky we were. There are three 7) overflows that allowed the canal to empty down into the river during heavy rain. They came in handy on hot summer days. The path runs through the middle of Forest Hill Cemetery and then butts into 8) Fountain Park. Again, many days spent riding our bikes in and around this area. Before turning right onto Park Avenue and making my way back to Beckert, you pass by 9) Echo Lake. Still a nice view.

So that's that. Still my favorite run to date. Heading back Saturday for a wedding and plan doing the loop with a couple of friends.