ready set dérive!

left

after a few steps down the sidwalk, I was drawn to this part of my yard. There are tiger lily plants...

further

...and a sprinkler thing that fascinated me

I got back on the sidewalk

gate

and was immediately drawn by the textures of this fence

hey who's that?

neighbor

this guy was nice...

baby!

...but the real treat was this other baby. We laughed at each other for a bit.

back to the gate

no really, the texture of this was really interesting in my little hands

van detailing

right by the gate I noticed there was this cool van with colorful pinstriping. I had to check that out.

backtrack

I decided to step back one house

my view

from down here, the house next door to ours looks very large. my dad really hates this house because it's abandoned and it's an eyesore.

back to our yard

I wanted to look at and touch our Obama sign.

trench

I really wanted to check out this trench my mom is digging for a french drain. My dad interfered with this process muttering something about falling and getting hurt. So I moved on...

toward the north

ball!

On the way through the other neighbor's yard, I found this ball.

yard sale

Two houses down the neighbor has an almost perpetual yard sale. This vexes my mom. It certainly makes for interesting stuff to explore.

back on the sidewalk

heading north

sister blur

my big sister got involved at this point, jumping on me and showing me off to other kids

little girl

this small girl was very excited to see me. we hollered at each other a little bit.

oops

this is one of many minor spills I took. it's no big deal, no matter what my dad says.

big toys

these caught my eye...

distracted

...but not for too long

backtrack

I circled north only briefly then immediately doubled back south because I wanted to see what the deal was with this other yard.

my instincts were good

because I saw this chalk.

then I headed back to the kids' house

there was a birthday party going on and I looked back to see my dad eating a piece of cake the size of my head.

baby!

I was interested in this baby, sure...

woman with phone

...but the real treat is her phone. The phone is my favorite thing. Sometimes I just stand there pretending whatever toy I'm holding is a phone and I say "huh?" My dad is very good at playing this game because he puts his hand to his head and says back "Hello? Henry? Hello!"

big toys again

I wandered back over to look at the scooter.

scooter

I tried to ride it but I don't quite get how this thing works

whatever. let's look at this other other house

I decided to get up from the scooter and wander over to the other house. The kids followed me and tried to induce me into a game of high five. I don't really know that one yet but I tolerated their interruptions because they were being pretty nice.

another fence!

I was exploring the contours of this house when I saw they had a fence on the north side. I wandered down their sidewalk...

interrupted

...when the kids showed up and diverted me. I don't know but they seemed to think there was something in the back yard I shouldn't see. Maybe another day...

dancing inside

So I went into their house--the door was open and I heard music in there so I wandered in to dance.

end of derive

At this point my dad insisted it was time to go home and get Eleanor ready for bed. This ends my derive. I got a stubbed toe which bled a little bit, but it was really fun. Probably the most I'd explored on this block in my whole life.