A Road Divided
I started my trip down Forest Road at the southern end of the street. Our friends the Katzenberger’s live near the intersection of Clifton Road (not Boulevard) and Forest Road, and Nora Katzenberger joined me on the walk.
The most unique thing about Forest is that it is almost perfectly split in half by the highway-like section of Clifton Boulevard leading up to the bridge to Rocky River. A fence runs along Clifton Boulevard in this section making the homes on “South” Forest and “North” Forest feel like two different neighborhoods. If fact, Nora said when they order food she makes sure to tell them they live on Forest “south of Clifton”.
As we approached the fence at the end of their section of the street there was a gap allowing us to cross Clifton Boulevard. As it was during morning rush hour, it felt a bit like we were in a real-life game of Frogger. We stopped in the median like the little frog waiting on his log to pick just the right time to leap to his lily pad.
We made it safely across and enjoyed the walk together on the other section of the street. I then decided to walk back to her house to cross Clifton one more time “Frogger-style”. I snapped a quick pic of this gap in the fence before heading across. Our timing was remarkable, as a Lakewood streetcleaner was heading towards us in the bike lane. The driver had to stop to remove some large debris and we learned there are two street cleaners in Lakewood. I’m not sure if there are streetcleaners in the Frogger video game, but I’m glad we have two of them patrolling our streets keeping our city beautiful.
