The morning started off a bit rocky as we struggled to resuscitate Donnie’s Lebaron, which we had been planning to drive to Bond Hill and leave in the CAA lot during our run. Its near-demise was perhaps the result of Donnie having fed its backseat a steady diet of Skyline wrappers, apple cores, and other assorted garbage. Keeping it classy.
Anyway.
The Community Action Agency shares its parking lot with a branch of the public library and beauty supply store. Donnie took this photo of the building before we even pulled into the lot:
Not to be outdone, I crouched under the front entrance, flexed my photography muscles, and took this one:
Before setting out on our run, I took quick bathroom break at Cap’t Dees.
We took a left out of the parking lot and ran down Reading Road along the hedges hiding the golf course.
At the entrance I asked Donnie to pose for a picture in front of the Maketewah Country Club sign:
I don't think they would let him drive his Lebaron there.
Bond Hill has two stretches of commercial store fronts. The first one that we came to is along Reading Road. There, Donnie pooh-poohed the idea of taking my photo in front of the “Gold Teeth” sign. Instead he waited until we got off the strip and took this picture of me, which will perhaps go down in the record books as one of the most awkward photos ever taken:
This is front of PACE High School, which obviously used to be a Catholic Church.
Next, we ran through the residential sections of Bond Hill until we came to the neighborhood’s second business district along Paddock Road. From there we ran back along the golf course:
Many of the homes in Bond Hill are gorgeous old tudors like these:
Paddock leads to Regina Greater Way and the Greater’s Manufacturing plant:
Please tell me that the photo of this ice cream truck was worth the trouble of following Donnie through a muddy field and ruining my new Asics. Actually, don’t bother. It's a pretty lame photo and my shoes will never be the same.
The Greater’s manufacturing plant is the first of several warehouse-size buildings in a great stretch of business parks:
The sidewalks that line the business parks are wide and set back from the street. We weren't surprised to see other people out for exercise--a woman in walking clothes, and then a hoard (Do I mean a herd? Not sure why hoard came to mind, unless I was still thinking abou Donnie's car.) of bikers:
Next we stood forever waiting for a Walk light to cross Seymour:
And then we ran up on the grounds of the Summit Behavioral Health Center. The building is a cool contemporary-looking structure with a big “A” shaped entrance and round windows.
At the back of the building you can see into an interior courtyard with basketball hoops and picnic benches. Just as I remarked how the courtyard windows made the facility a literal Panopticon, an Ohio State Trooper in his brown uniform crossed the lawn and wagged his finger at us asking us to approach him.
He asked us if we knew where we were and without waiting for an answer, informed us that we were on the grounds of a state institution. “What are you doing here?” Just joggin’. “Well, don’t come back.” Yes sir, understood.
Whoops.
Our route was less than 5 miles so we added on a little bit by running through the Villages of Daybreak, a newer subdivision with suburban-looking homes laid out in a traditional neighborhood design, close to each other and to the street:
Although the streets were empty at 11:00 AM on a Saturday, I could picture families walking together after dinner on summer evenings—parents pushing strollers and kids on bicycles weaving down the street.
Having only completed two of our fifty-two neighborhood runs, I couldn’t help but compare Bond Hill to Avondale. I decided that Bond Hill seems to be a bit more wide-open, almost as if it has been stretched to fit around the golf course in the center.
California is up next.
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