Between the rivers, trails, wooded hills and cliffs, we are fortunate to live in a region rich with outdoor recreation. The Mid-Ohio Valley is home to roughly 270 miles of off-road trail, including the North Bend Rail Trail. We took to the trails this winter to share five of our favorite local hiking spots!

McDonough Park Trails

McDonough Park has a total of 5 miles of trails ranging from easy to moderate. The trails are wide, well-marked, and include some steep inclines in certain sections. These trails can be split into smaller sections or done in a complete 5-mile loop. There is also an easier completely paved trail in McDonough park; you can loop the trail three times to make one mile.

North Bend Rail Trail

If you’re looking for a flat trail with beautiful scenery, the North Bend Rail Trail is a great option. This trail is a total of 72 miles, but it has many entrance points throughout the entire span.

West Virginia University – Parkersburg Walking Trail

Located on the campus of West Virginia University in Parkersburg this trail is perfect for students to walk during a long break between classes or for the community to enjoy the beautiful campus they may otherwise miss out on. This trail is secluded in the trees, and it has a large meadow in the middle that is perfect for picnics!

Mountwood Park

At Mountwood, you will find many miles of trails winding through the beautiful forest. There is also a short and mostly level nature path that includes educational signs about the forest and wildlife that surrounds you.

Middle Island Trails

Middle Island, located on the Ohio River, is a 240 acer island that is covered in trails. Here you will see beautiful wet lands, forests, and grassy meadows. You can choose to loop the entire island or cut the trail into smaller loops.

Happy Trails!

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“Did you save room for dessert?” is the dumbest question I think I have ever been asked. Even if I have not saved room for dessert, I am going to have it. If I am so full I could bust, I sit up straighter (my philosophy is that this makes more room in my stomach) and prepare for the best part of the meal. I love desserts. That is the bottom line. Need proof? Check out #alieatsdesserts on Instagram! Over the past few weeks I set out on the mission to discover the top 10 desserts in the MOV and these are my results!

1. Blondie Ice Cream Sundae from Spats Restaurant & Lounge at The Blennershassett Hotel

This sundae is perfect! The blondie is chewy, warm, and loaded with chocolate chips! The creamy raspberry chocolate chip ice cream compliments the warm blondie perfectly.

2. Cream Cheese Baklava from Chams Lebanese Cuisine

This baklava is a famous item on the menu for good reason. The flaky pastry is a perfect shell for the sweet, smooth cream cheese filling. Take my word that just one will not be enough!

3. Chocolate Thunder Cake from Third Street Deli

This slice of heaven- I mean cake- is a great way to satisfy a sweet tooth. The rich chocolate icing is layered thickly on top and throughout the dense chocolate cake.

4. Strawberries and Cream form Rubi’s Pizza & Grill

Once you have eaten a heavy dinner of pasta or pizza, this light and refreshing dessert is the perfect end for the meal! I felt slightly less guilty for finishing the entire bowl knowing that under all the sweet cream was a healthy fruit.

5. Pecan Praline from Spats Restaurant & Lounge at The Blennershassett Hotel

This dessert is just as delicious as it is beautiful! The pecan tuille is perfectly crisp and adds to the flavor of the smooth praline ice cream. The caramel and chocolate sauces make a perfect topper to this delicious dessert.

6. Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich form Smitty’s Pizza

This ice cream cookie sandwich is made with humongous cookies and soft serve ice cream. They offer homemade chocolate chip, oatmeal, and peanut butter cookies with a generous amount of vanilla soft serve ice cream in the middle.

7. Swiss Chocolates from Holl’s Chocolate

You cannot go wrong when choosing amongst the wide variety of chocolates that Holl’s offers, but my personal favorite is the Classic Milk Chocolate Truffle.

8. Sea Salt Carmel Cake from Mangos

The sea salt caramel cake is extremely moist and full of flavor! Each layer of cake and salted caramel melted in my mouth.

9. Cake Doughnuts form Wild n Wonderful Doughnuts

At Wild n Wonderful you get to design your own fresh and hot doughnuts, and then watch them be made! There are many different coatings and toppings that make the options endless.

10. Cream Cheese Brownie from JR’s Doughnut Castle

The brownie-to-icing ratio is exactly as it should be- equal! The rich cream cheese icing is the perfect addition to the delicious brownie.

SaveSave

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If the winter blues have got you down, the best place to head is to a warm, sunny beach with blankets of white sand! During the winter the MOV only has blankets of white snow, and if you can’t make it to the beach you will have to improvise. With this tropical mango and strawberry smoothie in your hand, the refection of the snow shining through your windows, your sunglasses on, and your heat turned up, you will never know the difference!

What you’ll need: 

• 2 tablespoons of milk
• 1 ¾ cups of orange juice
• ½ cup of mango chunks
• ½ cup of cut strawberries
• 1 tablespoon of sugar or honey (optional)
• It is best to make the smoothie in two parts- mango then strawberry.

For the mango part:

Put the ½ cup of mango chunks, ¾ cup of orange juice, 2 tablespoons of milk, and ½ tablespoon sugar or honey into the blender and blend until smooth.

Poor the first part into a glass (or a pineapple if you happen to have one handy) and get ready for the next step!

For the strawberry part:

Put the ½ cup of cut strawberries, 1 cup of orange juice, and ½ tablespoon of sugar or honey into the blender and blend until smooth.

Poor the strawberry on top of the mango, grab your sunglasses and you are ready for a relaxing “beach” day!

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“We love to make coffee for the city that loves to drink it.” That quote is the first thing you see when you walk up to Unity Café, and it is a quote that their whole team believes in. Unity Café is a unique café and eatery that serves delicious American and Bulgarian items. The owner, Petia Johnson, has a 7-year background in coffee and was looking for a new opportunity when she united with three baristas Dakota Full, Eric Snuffer, and ReNae Phillips. Unity Café is a barista operated café; what this means is that the baristas all work together to run the café instead of having a manager over them. The incentive behind this type of operation is that everyone gets a percent of the yearly earnings. Petia stressed that Unity Café is a co-op business because she recognizes that everyone has their own gift, and often times someone’s gift is not used to its full potential. She referred to the baristas as “members” saying that they all have their own voice and input in the café. Having heard about their philosophy and the way they operate, it was easy to see why they settled on the name Unity Café.

Suspended coffee is another aspect of Unity Café that makes it unique; all of the baristas were eager to talk about it. They explained it like this- a customer buys coffee, the customer chooses to pay for another cup of coffee for an anonymous person, the barista writes down that a cup has been paid for, and then, at the baristas discretion, someone gets a free cup of coffee. They will give the free cups to the mail carriers, delivery workers, someone in need, or to anyone it sees fit. The concept behind suspended coffee is to reach into the community and be friendly explained Dakota Fuller.

Unity Café wants to be very community based. The baristas hope for café to become a space for young adults to study, read, and socialize. One of the reasons they choose their location on Seventh Street in downtown Parkersburg is that everyone saw the potential in the area and agreed that it needed new life brought to it. Petia Johnson explained that she believes coffee houses add culture to the areas that surround them, and the more coffee the more culture.

As far as their menu goes, they have something for everyone! They have traditional drinks such as mochas and lattes, but they also have Bulgarian jezve and meal replacement smoothies (with 20 grams of protein). In the coming weeks, Unity Café will begin to serve nitro coffee; Dakota Full explained that nitro coffee is a creamy iced-coffee that many cafes do not offer. Their loose leaf tea is another stand-out item on their menu (stay tuned because they are planning to have tea tastings where you can try out the richly flavored loose leaf tea). In addition to the large drink menu, from 11am until 2pm chef Scott Clark prepares a variety of made-to-order sweet and savory crepes, and there are freshly baked goods to choose from as well.

Unity Café seems to have a bright and successful future ahead of them. It is evident as soon as you walk in the door and see the smiling faces and hear the cheerful greetings from all of the staff, that at Unity Café they really do love to make coffee for the city that loves to drink it!

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Most everyone knows the infamous Quincy Hill stairs and tries to avoid them at all costs. If you are like me, you avoid all stairs in general with the fear of falling down or up them. With that being said, they are a great place to work out – carefully. This staircase workout can be modified for any set of stairs, but who would not want to conquer the stairs that most local high school athletes themselves dread!

Warm Up: 

If your heart is not already racing from the thought of going up the stairs, a simple warm up is to jump right in and run up and then back down the stairs.

Elevated Push-up:

Standing on one step, lean forward and assume the position of a normal push-up with your hands on the edge of a stair. Repeat this as many times as you can in one minute.

Calf Raises:

Position your feet on the edge of one stair and slowly lower your heels as far down as you can. Then raise your heels up until you are standing on the tips of your toes. Hold each position for 5 seconds. Hop to the next step and do it again until you have reached the top or for one minute.

For more of a challenge, try doing it on one foot a time.

Squat Jump:

For this exercise you will begin by doing a classic squat, and as you come up out of the squat you will hop onto the next stair up. Do this until you reach the top of the stairs or for one minute.

Inclined Tricep Dip:

Start by sitting on a step. With your legs straight out, position yourself on your heels; place your arms onto the step behind you at a 90-degree angle. Straighten your arms and push your bottom off of the stair until your body is horizontal to the stairs. Repeat this as many times as you can for one minute.

Lunges:

For a spin on the classic lunge, step up as many stairs as you can with one leg and bend the opposite leg until it touches a stair below you. Step to the stair your first leg is on and repeat by stepping with the opposite leg. Continue alternating legs until you reach the top of the stairs or for one minute.

Shuffle Steps: 

For this exercise, you are going to climb the stairs sideways. Once you reach the top, jog back down, reverse sides, and do it again.

This workout can be repeated as many or as few times as you like, but I would recommend trying for 3 times.

Taking the stairs is always a healthy alternative to an elevator or escalator, and this workout is just another way to use the stairs to your advantage!

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