I hear it all the time: “Toledo’s so boring. There’s nothing to do here.” The next time you hear someone say those words, please hand them a copy of this issue.
I admit: When our editorial team decided to come up with a list of “101 ways to spend 101 days” in Northwest Ohio, I thought it might be difficult. I imagined our stream of ideas running dry around No. 70 or so and really having to dig deep to finish the list.
As it turned out, we had the opposite problem. In no time at all, we had a list of nearly 150 regional activities and destinations. We pared the list to 101 a few times only to think of new ones to add.
Nearly every day for several weeks, I’d come into work to find an idea from a co-worker in an email or on a sticky note, or someone poking their head around the door frame to say, “What about this?” Picking the brains of some of our friends and regular contributors yielded more activities I wasn’t aware of, including a Sunday afternoon community drum circle in the Old West End, virtual golf at Tamaron Country Golf Club’s Indoor Golf Center and Bird’s Eye View Circus Space, a new studio at the Collingwood Arts Center offering lessons in aerial silks, trapeze, acro yoga and more.
I started paying more attention to Facebook posts and event invitations, where I learned about Glass City Café’s Saturday morning breakfast music series. Driving around town with new eyes, I started to notice things I’d never noticed before, like the Toledo Firefighters Museum just down the street from Boyd’s Retro Candy Store.
The weekend of July 20-21 alone offers the opportunity to take in worldclass golf at the LPGA’s Marathon Classic in Sylvania, groove to the sounds of more than 40 local musicians at 11 UpTown venues during The Arts Commission’s SoundTrek, get your Jiggs Dinner fix at the Toledo Hibernian Irish Festival Downtown or admire the riverfront as Wynonna Judd performs at Hollywood Casino Toledo’s outdoor summer concert series.
I’m inspired by local resident Sherry Stanfa-Stanley, who recently decided she needed to break out of a “30-year slump.” As reported by Staff Writer Evan Brune, Stanfa-Stanley is now almost two months into a quest to have 52 new experiences in the 52 weeks leading up to her 52nd birthday. So far, she’s entered a pizza-eating contest, taken a belly dancing class, auditioned for “Survivor,” been hypnotized and more.
It’s never too late to look around and see how much Northwest Ohio has to offer. We could have easily doubled our list and still been forced to leave things off. In the end, we decided to choose our 101 with the goal of touching on as many points of interest as possible. We listed them in no particular order but grouped them by category for ease of reading and include a disclaimer that the list was far from exhaustive.
So let us know: Which of your favorites did we miss? Email us at news@toledofreepress.com.
Sarah Ottney is managing editor of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Contact her at sottney@toledofreepress.com.
