Miami Valley RailTrails Newsletter
November 2004

Hello MVRT Members - It's 22 November 2004 and I have news for you. If this issue I'll tell you about visiting the new trial system in Miami County as well as visiting the new Xenia-Jamestown Connection to report to you how the trail construction is coming along. There's a new look to the Home Page and I'm adding printable maps to the website. 

• New Navigation Bar on Home Page: If you have visited the website recently you'll see that I have revised the Home Page of Miami Valley RailTrails. I have changed the navigation on the Home Page by replacing the old navigation with a set of drop-down menus that better describe the trails in the Miami Valley. Also I have added information that shows which County each trail is in. For those of you that liked using the old Home Page it's still there. Just click on "Show me the Old Page" and you'll be taken to it. There are more changes coming and I'll announce them to you when I get them ready for your use. Please let me know if the new navigation system works better for you. 
  
  

• Visit to Miami County To See Trail Plan: Two weeks ago my wife and I were guests of Mr. Bob Shook Chairman, Miami County Bikeway Task Force. We went with him in a Concord Township truck to see the entire planned North and South trail across Miami County. The trail will start at Taylorsville MetroPark in Montgomery County South of Miami County. The trail will travel North to Tipp City, Troy and Piqua before it crosses into Shelby County at Sidney, Ohio
  
  

  • Mr. Shook showed us all of the seven numbered sections as well as the trail segments to be built by the cities in Miami County. I have completely revised my Trails in Miami County page at: http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/trails_in_miami_county.htm 
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  • I have added a printable map that shows all of the sections and the page has a description of all sections with links to Sections 1 & 2. The existing 1.6-mile trail from Dye Mill Road South to the Monroe Township line is called Section 1 so I have revised that page. 
    
    

  • The section to be built next is called Section 2. It will be complete by July 2005. The trail runs North from Dye Mill Road to the old power plant just South of Troy. The new page with pictures of where the new trail will go is at:
    http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/GRMRT%20-%20Section%202.htm  
    
    
    

• New Xenia-Jamestown Connector Progress: Two weeks ago I spent an afternoon with Mr. Jim Schneider of Greene County Recreation, Parks and Cultural Arts Department. He is in charge of building the new Xenia-Jamestown Connector. This trail will travel from Xenia Station Southeast to Jamestown. When completed the trail will be 11 miles long. In 2004 the 6.5 mile section from Jamestown West to Jasper Road will be completed. The remaining 4.5 miles from Jasper Road West to Xenia will be completed later. I completely revised the Xenia-Jamestown Connector webpage and added pictures that I took of the new trail in Greene County. The new page is at: http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/james.htm  
  
  
  
  

• Change to MSN Website used to send this email to you: I established a website with MSN several years ago in order to send out periodic emails to those of you who wish to read a monthly newsletter about trail happenings in the Miami Valley. But since the website's bulletin board was open to anyone who wanted to post to it, all of you got an occasional email that was Spam or worse. I have closed the bulletin board to random posts. If any of you want make a post, send it to me and I'll post it for you. 
  
  
  

• New Printable Maps on Website:  A while ago a reader told me that a map on my website did not print correctly, I checked and he was right. I am revising all of my maps on the website to make them printable on one page. I will have all of them available to see and/or print. I've also noticed that Internet Explorer automatically resizes images to fit on the screen. So when you click on a map (or picture) Internet Explorer will resize the image to fit the screen. So you will not get to see the map's (or picture's) detail. So after you see the full screen image, right click with your mouse and select "Zoom In". Then you'll be able to see the detail. For large images you can "Zoom In" twice to see the entire map or image. 
  
  
  

• Miami Valley RailTrails ScreenSaver  (Repeat from October) f you noticed a small change to the Home Page's navigation menu very recently that mentions a Miami Valley RailTrails ScreenSaver "Good For You!" If not, I'll repeat it here. I noticed recently that I have almost 900 images on this website! I also have thousands of photos of trails in the Miami Valley that I have taken over the past seven years that this website has been in existence. So, I thought that I would use some of those images to build a FREE Miami Valley RailTrails ScreenSaver! The ScreenSaver is a  "Thank You!" present to all of my faithful readers  and all of you who have made useful suggestions over the years. I'll have built a separate webpage to provide for the download of the file you'll need to load the ScreenSaver on your PC. The program works with Windows, 95, 98, ME, NT and 2000. I have not tested it with Windows XP but I expect it will work with it as well.  The Free ScreenSaver is at: http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/screensaver.htm 

Regards to all, 

Thomas J. Recktenwalt
Webmaster
Miami Valley RailTrails
http://www.miamivalleytrails.org  

If you find these newsletters and my Miami Valley RailTrails website of use to you, please pass the information on to your friends and neighbors who might enjoy our wonderful system of multi-use trails in Southwest Ohio. They are wonderful for walking, running, roller-bladeing, birding and cycling and in some cases horseback riding. You see more wildlife from one of our trails than most anyplace else. All of my newsletters are posted to my website at the same time I send you this text version. The URL for your use is: http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/join_our_mailing_list.htm 

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