Month: April 2023
Many people regularly enjoy the opportunity for exercise and recreation along some of the greenways and bike trails in the north Atlanta metro area. The traffic noise of the city subsides as users move into the woods and along picturesque creeks. These pathways also provide glimpses of some of the wildlife that lives in the area.
The Big Creek Greenway is a popular linear park located in Alpharetta. Big Creek is a tributary of the Chattahoochee River, and the greenway follows over six miles of the creek and its adjoining wetlands. The multi-use paved path is twelve feet wide and mostly flat. It is suitable for walking, jogging, biking, and skating. One section is designated for pedestrians only with a boardwalk over a wetlands area. There is also a .75 mile wood chip path for mountain biking and hiking. The Big Creek Greenway runs from Webb Bridge Road on the north to Mansell Road on the south. Construction is currently underway to extend the greenway north to Windward Parkway. Eventually the path will connect on the north end to Forsyth County and its network of recreational trails. The greenway is open from 8am to sunset. Parking areas are located at Haynes Bridge Road, Northpoint Parkway, Rock Bridge Park on Kimball Bridge Road, and next to the YMCA on Preston Ridge Road. Restrooms are located at Rock Bridge Park and the tail head at Northpoint Parkway.
The Big Creek Greenway connects on the south end to Big Creek Park in the City of Roswell. The park contains an additional two miles of paved multi-use trail, as well as unpaved hiking trails and single track mountain bike trails. There is also a pedestrian only section of boardwalk over a wetlands area. This park is part of the Roswell Wetlands Enhancement Project, and it received an award from the American Council of Engineering Companies for engineering excellence. Parking and restroom facilities are located off Old Alabama Road.
The Cochran Shoals Unit of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area is popular with walkers and bikers. Located just outside the I-285 perimeter, the linear park has entrances off Papermill Drive in Sandy Springs and Columns Drive. The Sope Creek section has six miles of trails, 2.5 miles of which are designated for bike use. The trails follow along the creek and circle Sibley Pond. They lead past the ruins of an old mill that produced paper from 1855-1902. The Columns Drive section of the park contains a three mile fitness trail and a boardwalk along the creek. The Park is open from dawn to dusk, and there is a $3 parking fee.
The Blanket Creek Bicycle Trail in Woodstock contains nine miles of loop trails. The single track mountain bike trails range in difficulty from intermediate to advanced. The trails may be accessed off I-575 at Sixes Road.
The Silver Comet Trail is a paved multi-use trail that begins in Smyrna and runs 61 miles to the Georgia- Alabama border. It is open to hikers, bikers, joggers, inline skaters, and horses. The Cobb County section of the trail is the busiest portion. This section contains the most access points for the trail and the best facilities for trail users.
These greenways and bike trails provide users the opportunity to participate in outdoor recreational activities in the midst of a busy urban area. The peaceful natural areas provide a respite from the noise and traffic of the city. They are a perfect escape for a little exercise or a quiet walk.
Modern acrylic photo frames are the very best way to enhance your home or office if you like beautiful, modern layouts. While wood frames are wonderful for houses with traditional dcor, they are not constantly the perfect choice for contemporary minimalist rooms. Individuals use images such as pictures and artwork to show their type and maintain their beloved memories alive. Picking the correct frame is necessary to developing a show that you can adore examining every day. Unlike typical frames, contemporary frames enable photos and art work to stand out by itself. Contemporary photo frames may be the best selection for your house or workplace if you choose contemporary design and delight in easy yet visually sensational layouts.
There are a few different kinds of contemporary picture frames you can easily decide on from depending on your requirements and personal preferences. Aluminium photo frames look slim and ultra-modern . Digital photo frames are fantastic for saving a big collection of photos within one frame.
The type of frames most individuals link with modern-day frame designs is acrylic. Acrylic frames have actually become progressively favored amongst individuals throughout the world since they are extremely versatile, inexpensive, easy and stylish to sustain. Acrylic photo frames are offered in a assortment of various types and may be quickly customised to fit any type of need. Other than their innovative modern layouts, among the largest reasons acrylic photo frames are so prominent is that they could be utilized for all framing jobs ranging from recreations shirt frames to certificate shows. Acrylic frames are extensively utilized both in your home and at the office.
While aluminium, metal and digital frames are all proper for modern-day design, the majority of people like to make use of acrylic frames since they are more efficient, pretty inexpensive and versatile . Aluminium frames usually look a little cold and dark , which may sidetrack from the pictures they present. Digital image frames are fantastic for presenting single pictures, but they tend to be small in dimension and are expensive contrasted to various other sorts of frames. Acrylic photo frames, on the other hand, can easily be utilized for a range of different shows and images. They can be found in a vast variety of rates and can be customised to suit your necessities wonderfully.
One of the most favored modern fads in acrylic framing is clear frames. Shopping for frames on the Internet gives you access to a much bigger section of high-grade acrylic frames that you would certainly locate in a typical outlet. If you enjoy modern-day styles, getting acrylic photo frames could be a wonderful method to include a special touch to your house or workplace without spending a fortune. You’ll discover more about Modern picture frames if you want.
Unlike standard frames, modern-day frames enable photos and art work to stand out on its own. The kind of frames most people associate with modern frame styles is acrylic. Apart from their advanced modern-day designs, one of the largest factors why acrylic photo frames are so popular is that they could be made use of for all framing tasks ranging from recreations shirt frames to certificate displays. While aluminium, metal and digital frames are all appropriate for modern dcor, most people favor to utilize acrylic frames due to the fact that they are a lot more useful, fairly economical and flexible . Digital photo frames are terrific for displaying single photographs, but they usually tend to be little in dimension and are pricey compared to additional types of frames.
Did you know there are more than a dozen sites run by the National Parks Service just waiting for you to discover in Utah? If you love RV camping as well as the beauty of Americas National Parks, a trip to Utah should be on your To-Do List. Hope this brief list whets your appetite for an RV road trip to Utah soon.
Bryce Canyon National Park: The mystical redrock hoodoos of Bryce Canyon National Park are just the beginning of what your camera will want to capture. Craggy pines point to the sky from deep, brilliantly colored canyons that speak of an ancient ice and wind. Plan to stay in one of the parks tree-lined campsites and be sure to look up to the night sky to see the more than seven thousand stars visible in this astronomers paradise.
Zion National Park: Covering three counties, Zion National Park offers RV campers the chance to see spectacular sandstone cliffs rising up ten thousand feet above the desert floor. Plan to spend time hiking trails that climb from canyon floors up through snug passages between massive cliffs. If youre into even more strenuous sport, rock climbers love these cliffs for the challenge they offer. RV camping is allowed in three RV campgrounds at Zion, so set up your base camp within the Park and get ready for some seriously photographable scenery!
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area: Plan plenty of time to visit Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, because with more than one million acres, its not a place to rush through. Rent a boat and cruise the magnificent sandstone coves and canyons of Lake Powell, or keep your feet on dry land and hike to lush hanging gardens high above the desert floor. Another must see at Glen Canyon is Horseshoe Bend and the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. RV camping within the NRA is limited, but Lake Powell Resorts and Marinas operates several comfortable lakeside campgrounds right in the middle of the action.
Dinosaur National Monument: Located on the Colorado/Utah border, Dinosaur National Monument is the perfect spot for a family RV camping vacation. Although the Quarry and Museum were closed at the time this article was written, a half mile hike will lead you to wonderful fossils in rock faces within a rugged canyon. For RV campers who love whitewater rafting, the Green River boasts Level III and IV rapids, with calmer waters downstream for less experienced rafters. There are campgrounds on both sides of the state line, with a range of services available.
Arches National Park: Two thousand stone arches carved by wind and water lead visitors to Arches National Park near Moab, Utah into a geological wonderland. An awe-inspiring combination of arches, cliffs and stone spires dot the landscape at this Park. For physically active RV campers, the Fiery Furnace ranger-guided tour will take you up, over and in between hundreds of rock formations for an unforgettable experience. Less strenuous trails abound at Arches as well, so be sure to bring your hiking shoes. Campgrounds within the Park and those operated by the Bureau of Land Management in the Moab area easily accommodate the needs of motorhome campers.
Believe it or not, there are even more U.S. National Parks sites to be explored in Utah! Go to the National Parks Service website for more information about all there is to see in this stunning Western State.
There are two types of property ownership recognized by law, jus privatum and jus publicum. Everybody’s familiar with jus privatum, also known as fee simple ownership. It means that you have title to a parcel of property, which confers upon you certain rights with respect to that property. Historically, private property rights have been defined as:
The right to control the use of your property.
The right to the benefits that accrue from your property.
The right to sell or transfer your property.
The right to exclude others from access to your property.
On the other hand, few people are familiar with jus publicum, also known as the public trust. Jus publicum ownership is always vested in the state, never in a private party. Unlike jus privatum, jus publicum is not transferrable. Furthermore, in any case where jus publicum can be established, it overrides jus privatum. Therein lies the rub. That enables the state to use jus publicum to abrogate your private property rights, without your consent and without compensation, in any situation where jus publicum can be established.
The idea of public trust goes back to English Common Law.
“Both the title and the dominion of the sea, and of rivers and arms of the sea, where the tide ebbs and flows, and of all the lands below high water mark, within the jurisdiction of the crown of England, are in the King. Such waters and the lands which they cover either at all times or at least when the tide is in, are incapable of ordinary and private occupation, cultivation, and improvement and their natural and primary uses are public in their nature, for highways of navigation and commerce, domestic and foreign, and for the purpose of fishing by all the King’s subjects. Therefore the title, jus privatum, in such lands, as of waste and unoccupied lands, belongs to the king, as the sovereign; and the dominion thereof, jus publicum, is vested in him, as the representative of the nation and for the public benefit.”
— U.S. Supreme Court, Shively v. Bowlby (1894)After the American Revolution, the thirteen former colonies that made up the newly formed Union assumed the title and rights of the King to all navigable rivers within their respective territories. The jus publicum was held to be non-transferrable, acting as a permanent public easement on the jus privatum title for purposes of navigation, commerce, and fishing, as originally designated under English Common Law. At a time when rivers were the most practical means of transporting people and goods over long distances, the free use of navigable waterways was considered essential for the development of local and interstate economies.
As other states were admitted to the Union, they were guaranteed equal footing with the original thirteen, and so acquired the same title and rights to the navigable rivers within their jurisdiction.
Said rivers and waterways and all navigable waters of the said state shall be common highways and forever free as well to the inhabitants of said state as to all citizens of the United States without tax, duty, import or toll thereafter.
— Act for Admission of Oregon into the United States (1859)In accordance with the original intent of the law, jus publicum was traditionally defined as the specific public rights associated with using rivers as “highways of navigation and commerce” and for purposes of fishing. While a highway is dedicated to public use, no sane person would claim the right to sit down in the middle of a highway and have a picnic. That is not one of the designated purposes of a highway. Likewise, it never occurred to anyone to claim that recreation would be an applicable purpose for which to invoke jus publicum. — Up until 25 years ago, that is, at which time the state of California came up with the notion that the definition of jus publicum could be extended to include whatever purposes the state might find convenient.
The objective of the public trust has evolved in tandem with the changing public perception of the values and uses of waterways. … [T]he traditional triad of uses – navigation, commerce and fishing – did not limit the public interest in the trust res. … “In administering the trust the state is not burdened with an outmoded classification favoring one mode of utilization over another.”
— California Supreme Court, National Audubon Society v. Superior Court of Alpine County (1983)In that case, the California Supreme Court extended jus publicum to include non-navigable tributaries of Mono Lake. The court ruled that the state could prevent the Department of Water and Power for the City of Los Angeles from using its legally owned water rights because the usage interfered with the supply of water to Mono Lake. The water rights were deemed to be a public trust for “environmental and human considerations” having nothing to do with the traditional jus publicum rights relating to navigation, commerce, or fishing. The court rejected a regulatory takings claim because the land was held to be exempt from fee simple title on the grounds that it was a public trust and, therefore, no compensation was due to the plaintiff for the loss of their water rights.
That ruling opened the door for other states to expand the scope of jus publicum beyond its original intent, in whatever ways captured their imagination.
The nature of the ownership includes two components: fee simple title (the jus privatum) and dominion as the publics trustee over the natural resource for public trust uses such as navigation, commerce, fisheries and recreation (the jus publicum).
— Oregon Department of State Lands, Rogue River Navigability Report (2008 ) Oregon, quietly and without fanfare, slipped “and recreation” into the list of rights held in trust for the public under jus publicum. Nobody blinked so, by precedent, the “right” to recreation is now part of the legal definition of the public trust in the state of Oregon. What difference does that make? If you own riverfront property, the traditional definition of jus publicum guaranteed passage for boats on the river without your explicit consent. The new and improved definition declares that anybody who wants to may have picnics and parties in your backyard (at least the part of it that extends below the high water mark). In the course of carefree recreation, people often make noise, leave litter, and sometimes do damage to property. But there’s nothing you can do about that, because the state of Oregon declared they have as much right to use your property for recreation as you do. You can ask them to pick up their litter, but you can’t enforce it. And, if they damage your property, you can try to sue them, if you can find out who they are… But you have no legal right to keep them out, or to restrict what they may do while they’re enjoying your property.
Oregon was not the first state to include recreation in the definition of jus publicum. In 1999 (National Association of Home Builders v. New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection), riverfront property owners were compelled to allow a public pathway along the river, through their property, with no compensation for takings, because the right to access the river for recreational purposes was ruled a public trust. Because the path is on their property, the “owners” have the responsibility of maintaining it (just like a public sidewalk) and, presumably, they also carry the liability if anyone should get hurt while traversing it.
In 2002 (Esplanade Properties, LLC v. City of Seattle), the Ninth Circuit Court used the state of Washington’s expanded definition of jus publicum to prohibit residential development of privately owned shoreline properties. Because the recreational use of the shoreline is considered a public trust, no compensation was awarded to the fee simple “owners” of the property.
According to The Idea of Property: Custom and Public Trust, in 2001 (R. W. Docks & Slips v. Wisconsin), the Wisconsin Supreme Court “expanded the public trust doctrine to include recreation and preservation of scenic beauty.” Subsequently, Florida and other states “expansively interpreted” the public trust doctrine to include both recreation and scenic beauty, as well. When the state can rule that the public’s “right” to scenic beauty supercedes the private property rights of individuals, one has to wonder if there are any limits to the ever-expanding powers of state government to abrogate our property rights for whatever arbitrary purpose they may declare.
When the state declares your property, or some part of your property, to be a public trust, it can legally deprive you of the traditional rights associated with private property ownership. In the cases cited above, property owners were deprived of the right to control the use of their property, the right to economic benefits accruing from their property, and the right to exclude others from access to their property. Yet, as long as the justification is based on jus publicum (or expanded definitions thereof), the state is not required to pay any compensation for takings under the laws of eminent domain. Because jus publicum is non-transferrable, the state will claim the property rights in question never did actually belong to you (though you will continue to owe property taxes on the property).