Cylon

Threekoi and I started off just outside the hotel where we were staying in Houghton, MI.

The derive started off slowly, with us following the path of least resistance: The Sidewalk.

Oh, wait! What's that? Fraternity members playing shirtless beach volleyball oh a chilly autumn afternoon? Why, yes please.

The photo quality isn't great because I decided to practice sneaky shooting from the hip to avoid creepiness.
A few frathouses down, the choice to stay on the sidewalk pays off in....puppies!
At this point, we decided not to push our luck with sidewalk attractions--the sidewalk can only take you so far, after all. The foliage in the distance had caught our attention, so we decided to cut away from the sidewalk and across parking lots to the woods.

A failed passage to the foliage. It's surprisingly dense back there.

Another parking lot to cut across.

A Sunkist sign. Seriously, the derive was worth this alone. When was the last time you saw a light-up Sunkist sign? Staring up at this sign felt like childhood.
Still not at the woods yet. The foliage is getting thicker at this point, though. This hill seemed the quickest way out of neighborhoods into the trees. So as not to break the sidewalk ban, we hiked up on the street. Also, this hill is much steeper than it looks. MUCH steeper.

Paydirt! Steep hill has brought us to a playground. Of course, we were drawn directly to it.

This happened.

And this.
And this.
And this.
Right next to the swingset, we found a mildly disguised trail into the woods. Of course we took it!
The trail continues. Of course, what the photo doesn't show is all the houses we can still see to our left. We pushed further into the woods to get away from the houses. We're done with you, street and houses. The woods are what attract us!

This particular wooded area grows tires, apparently.The sight of buried tires arrests our attention. For the moment, they're more interesting than trees or leaves or nature.

ThreeKoi

Cylon's camera began to wilt in the lowering sun, so we traded gadgets. Screw you streets and houses, we're heading for the woods.
Came to a clearing with a rocky hill to our right.

What do you do with a hill? You climb it.
Try to avoid the fairly large animal hole located about halfway up and peer back down.

Another street. **shakes fist at sky**

We cross the street when we see a weird tree and wander beyond it.

This is a short trek. On the other side we emerge in yet another parking lot. This one yields unique car accessory ideas.

The parking lot is surrounded by more trees, so we just continue walking. This part of the woods seems to be lacking trails.

In the distance we hear music. We walk towards the music, but are distracted by a strange wooden structure. We change direction, head to the wooden structure and come across another trail.

Egads! It's a snowmobile ramp! We think it's a good idea to climb it, but once on top realize that was a poor decision. Getting down is treacherous.

We turn towards the music again. It takes us off any semblance of a path (note: the ensuing scratches on my legs take a week to heal). Judging from the wild animal waste, we are not the only creatures using this route.

We near a chain-link fence and walk along it, trying to find the source of the music.

Woohoo! Hole in the fence!
Yeah, we climbed over that.

At this point we can piece together that the music is marching band music. We're fairly certain we just broke past the ticket line. We head towards the music. Nope, just climbed a random fence, no laws broken here today...at least not obvious ones.
The band plays for us.