Social Distancing

Social Distancing Park Visits - June 2020

Social Distancing Park Visits - June 2020

After writing three social distancing blog posts about visiting our local parks during the coronavirus crisis, we really did not plan to write anymore blog posts on this subject. However, we have been having such a great time exploring parks that we had not visited before, and revisiting old favorites, that we decided to gather tweets from park visits in June 2020, to create this blog post.

This blog post accomplishes two things that are important to us.

Please note that we have attended many more parks in June 2020 than those included in this blog post. Beyond what we include here, Stuart has been doing section hikes on the Buckeye Trail "Little Loop" (the Buckeye Trail Little Loop is over 250 miles long in Northeast Ohio), and we have done eleven additional hikes as part of the Cleveland Metroparks Trail Challenge 2020. We plan to write blog posts about these trail activities when we complete them.

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WordCamp Kent 2020 Online & Beyond

WordCamp Kent 2020

WordCamp Kent -- One of the Great NEO Tech Education Opportunities!

Over the years, I had heard great things about Kent.WordCamp.org, but I have never attended their weekend of WordPress training. This year, I was scheduled for a multi-month backpacking trip on the Continental Divide Trail, but due to the coronavirus crisis, I had to cancel my trip to New Mexico. Instead, I have been exploring local parks and attending online activities -- learn more by reading my sosAssociates.com Social Distancing blog posts.

When I learned on Twitter from @WordCampKent that this year their WordCamp was not canceled and would be online, I was excited to attend. I am so glad I registered for it. It was great! Not only did it provide great resources for WordPress development, but it also included some really excellent management workshops.

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Social Distancing: Visiting More Parks and Park Campsite Information

Social Distancing: Visiting More Parks

As we wrote in our other Social Distancing blog posts about exploring our local parks, we continue to be fortunate to have had no illness or death in our family.

We are writing this blog post to:

We are both sad about activities we love being canceled for 2020, but we want to acknowledge all that we have gained in terms of time together learning about local parks and about each other.

We start this blog post with information about how to be safe in the parks during this coronavirus crisis. We also want to note that we added at the end of the blog post information about camping opportunities in our local park systems.

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Social Distancing with Virtual Trail Talks #CelebrateTrails #VirtualTrailDays

Social Distancing with Virtual Trail Talks

I have now written several social distancing blog posts during this time of the coronavirus crisis, about how I spend my time -- with park walks and online activities. I have also been attending some Facebook Live events about hiking trails, which I am featuring in this blog post.

During these sad times, I want to first acknowledge how fortunate I am that everyone in my family is healthy, and that I have the luxury of being able to participate in, and write about, interesting social distancing activities.

Secondly, I want to thank the organizations that are investing their time and resources to create these live video events featuring hiking trails. It is helping take the sting out of the fact that I was scheduled to be on a long-distance backpacking adventure at this time. I appreciate being able to join others online to celebrate trail life. Thank you!

The sections of this blog consist of:

Opening Day for Trails with Cleveland Metroparks CEO Brian Zimmerman

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Celebrate Trails @ Home

Continental Divide Trail Coalition - Virtual Trail Days

The Continental Divide Trail is Our Classroom with Author and Backpacker Cindy RossConversations Across a Continent with Continental Divide Trail Coalition Members

Virtual Trail Days: Living Room Concert with 3000 Miles

Virtual Trail Days: Trailblazers featuring Will “Akuna” Robinson and Elsye “Chardonnay” WalkerVirtual Trail Days: CDT Between the Ears with Jodie "Green, Gold and Blues" Morton Virtual Trail Days: The First Women to Hike the Continental Divide with Jean Ella Smith

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Social Distancing with Park Walks & Online Life

Julie demonstrates -- "Do your part! Stay 6 feet apart! Please help us to keep our parks open!"

Looking for humor and creativity on the Twitterverse, and visiting parks while social distancing is what my life mainly consists of currently. There is also a lot of sadness about plans being canceled, but my family has been fortunate to have had no illness or death. I try to support those that I see online that are making a difference in our community.

While no day of COVID-19 social distancing is the same, the typical day often contains the following elements: 

In this blog post, I share my experience visiting local parks, and my online life during these coronavirus crisis times.

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Humor and Creativity on the Twitterverse While Social Distancing

Humor and Creativity on the Twitterverse While Social Distancing

On Monday, March 30, 2020, while Julie and I were finishing our blog post, Peaceful Parks While Social Distancing, we got to talking about how we appreciated all the humor and creativity we were seeing on social media while everyone was social distancing. We were impressed by some of the very gifted people sharing their talents, and we liked how some people were using humor to cope with the stress of the current coronavirus crisis.

I decided to grab my @sos_jr tweets and retweets from this stressful time period that I thought demonstrated positive humor or creativity on the Twitterverse, and some tweets that had some personal significance. Please share those that you enjoy by retweeting them, so that your Twitter followers can share in a laugh, or appreciate the talent.

Humor and Creativity on the Twitterverse While Social Distancing

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Peaceful Parks While Social Distancing

 Canada Goose in Cleveland Metroparks on March 20, 2020

This blog post will share how we used our fantastic, local parks to deal with coronavirus-related stress starting, on Monday, March 16, 2020. An important part of health is mental health -- go for a walk for both physical and mental health!

We include information in this blog post about using the parks safely during this crisis, and resources to learn more about local parks. We have also included tweets about local restaurants from which we got food "to-go," on our way to or from the parks. It is important to support local business where possible at this time.

We want to thank our local park systems for their work to provide a safe place to explore.

Safe Practices When Visiting Cleveland Metroparks During Coronavirus (COVID-19)

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