The Perfect Walk

Good companion, interesting scenery, a fun little discovery

Yesterday morning my son (8) and I had a little adventure. The night before, his dad and I had been at a dressy party at a museum in Cleveland’s University Circle on the east side, which is a little change of pace from our normal routine.

Anyway, we made a mistake and parked in a garage that was locked by the time we had to leave the party. So we took a Lyft home.

So Sunday morning, we needed to travel about 12 miles to retrieve the car. I was honestly a little hungover. (Now that I’m 41, two drinks will do that to me — ugh aging!) But I volunteered to go get it.

I used to do this journey a lot before I had kids. I knew I could take the Red Line, our heavy rail system. It’s a little bit of a walk on both ends, but you don’t have to transfer or anything. My son agreed to come with me, even though he’s usually hard to get out of the house. We didn’t have much going on, there was no need to rush.

Since it was a long walk, I recommended he bring a scooter. I find those are very handy when you’re trying to do a walk with kids. Best part is, if they don’t want to ride it for some reason (or if you have to go up and down the stairs at the rapid station), it’s pretty easy to carry.

So we set off from our house. And it was cold but sunny.

The rapid ride was honestly a little weird. Some of the stuff I’ve written before about transit right now, I’m not going to rehash. I pulled up a book on tape from Libby. My son’s into Diary of a Whimpy Kid right now, and gave him my earbuds and that was enough to keep him happy on the ride.

We got off at the Cedar Hill stop, which is a little bit of a hike from the museums at University circle. But I wanted to stop in Little Italy and buy something to eat. So we walked down Murray Hill Road.

I wanted to go to Algebra Tea House, which is a little coffee shop that has a really different flavor than any other one in the city. Since it’s far from where I live, I don’t go very often.

The owner is from the Middle East, not sure where exactly (Palestinian?), but brings a lot of that culture to the coffee shop, including the name. It’s just a really special local gem, I think most Clevelanders would agree.

As I mentioned, I was a little hungover so I had big plans to try to find a greasy breakfast. I was able to coax my son into Algebra by promising to buy him a hot chocolate. I didn’t realize it, but Algebra Tea House does a really, really good breakfast/brunch on Saturday and Sunday mornings. So we grabbed a spot at the bar and ordered three dishes. My son wanted eggs, I wanted French toast, and we also ordered an “olive plate", because my son has decided he loves olives. (We both agreed afterword we had ordered too much, but the vibe was so great there I was sort of geeking out and got a little carried away I guess.)

Since we were sitting at the bar, we could see them preparing all the food on a little stovetop. The waitresses were talking and hugging, you could tell they were very close.

They served us super strong tea and a blended hot chocolate in these really weird, misshapen mugs they make themselves and sell for $35. While we were waiting for our food, we each took and ear bud and listened to Diary of a Wimpy Kid (this series is really great tbh, you don’t sell like 200 million books if it’s not good).

The food was delicious. And it wasn’t too pricey either. For me, a mom who a lot of time is cooking for a family of four, eating out is a real luxury. And it was unusual and fun to get to do it with just my son. Even though he was sort of against eating out at first, he had to admit that the food was amazing. He even got excited about the olives, which is the kind of thing I would do, and my dad would do. My families into food like that. It’s hard to explain but it’s one of the things I love best about my family and my older relatives, their interest in, and love of food. A plate of olives is totally the kind of thing they would get excited about.

After we finished up, we continued walking down Murray Hill Road till we got to the heart of Little Italy on Mayfield. We continued walking down the street toward University Circle. Whenever I’m in Little Italy, I always want to stop at one of two great bakeries that are there: Presti’s or Corbo’s, but we were too stuffed.

Mayfield continues along and you pass the Museum of Modern Art Cleveland, which is a cool sculptural building, and it has a giant hand statue out front. Then we crossed Euclid and we were on the campus of Case Western. I wanted to walk to the end of Hessler Street to show Kevin the old part of the street that is still made from wood blocks, but it was a little out of the way so we skipped it.

We passed the Peter B. Lewis Building, which was designed by Frank Gehry, and I told Kevin the local folklore about the building (and how you have to watch out for killer ice-sickles that accumulate from the crazy roof in the winter).

Then we were on the beginning of the Nord Greenway and we walked past the art museum and right through Wade Oval to the Natural History Museum where our car was parked.

Even Kevin — who likes to not like things his parents like already — had to admit it was a super fun adventure. I think it is the perfect Cleveland walk, a rare sort of stroll where it’s very comfortable the whole way to be on foot, and also very vibrant, with a lot to see.

When I look back at my life and how I got into doing all this active transportation stuff, the sort of fun and adventure aspect of it is probably the biggest. I love to explore places. To do a walk in a different neighborhood a little ways from home in my own city, but sort of in tourist mode, it was great. Especially with my little 8-year-old companion.

I think we tend to think of transportation as sort of a chore, And driving around your city by car is totally that way. It gets to be so tedious, the same roads over and over again. The same poorly timed traffic lights.

But transportation has always also had the opportunity for adventure. Like the Odessey, or even a motorcycle gang, sometimes the trip itself can be the fun part.

I think it was one of the best mornings of my life.

Over the years, I have gone back and forth about how I feel about Cleveland — good and bad. But I felt a deep appreciation and love for that journey and that place and that morning.