the road is too long...

One of my favorite pastimes is hiking. Ideally I’d get much more time to strap on a backpack and head out for days at a time. It never happens anymore for a number of reasons. But when I get the chance, I go walking and it’s great. Last spring, probably late May or early June, I was at my parents’ place in Northern Michigan and decided to go out for a few hours with my digital camera and the dog. I’m very familiar with my parents’ property and surrounding areas but I took a completely unique route this time and got lost. Here are some of the resulting photos:

This is a portion of my parents’ gardens. Like I said, it was early spring so there wasn’t much happening here yet. This is all early stuff like iris.

The woods directly behind my parents house was spared from the last clear-cut maybe 80 years ago probably because the land it sits on is no good for growing potatoes. The rolling hills in Northern Michigan were formed as the glaciers receded. They are what are know as recessional moraines which are formed when the rate that a glacier is melting is equal to the rate of its advance. This causes the glacier to dump all the rocks, sand, gravel and pebbles (glacial till) all in one spot forming an outline of the glaciers edge in the form of a long narrow mound. Anyway, you can’t grow taters in gravel or on hills. This photo was taken looking up one of those moraines.

My parents’ dog Betsy. She’s a sweetie. Note how clean she looks in this photo.

At this point Betsy and I have reached the edge of my parents' property and are about to embark on getting lost. I took this photo because I'm fascinated by trees and by the way they form open spaces in the woods. Here is a huge empty spot in an otherwise crowded area. What the hell? Obviously there is plenty of light, you can see it pouring through the canopy onto those wildflowers. Why doesn’t a tree grow there? This particular walk I took several shots of inexplicable open areas in the woods.

Ok. Now I’m lost although I may not have known it yet. I think at this point I think I know where I am at. It’s not until I start testing my theory that I realize I have no clue. This is a rock. As it turns out, it’s quartzite. I took it with me for two reasons; first because it was quartzite with green in it which I thought was cool and second because I found it in the middle of a coyote den which I thought was cooler. They had apparently taken over the top of a much smaller moraine. I got there by following a path I picked up in the middle of the woods. No human trails for me this day. There are a lot of things that make paths in the woods, I thought I was following a deer path but it turns out it led to Coyote central. Luckily, they were still at their winter haunt.

Here's a Coyote bed. There were about 8 of these little cleared out areas on the ridge.

Coyote fur.

Now I know I’m lost but I stumble onto a sweet clearing in the middle of a really thick part of the woods. Again, this is a totally inexplicable clearing. Just look at how thick the surround area is. This is a place that nobody ever goes to. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m the first person to walk through this part of the woods in 10 years. What the hell? Why does this happen? Maybe it’s just me that finds this amazing. Is it? Is it just me?

Being lost didn't keep me from noticing the spledid compostion made by these fallen branches.

Yet another unexplained clearing. I've been lost for about an hour at this point and am starting to get worried.

I stumbled across this huge crop of buttercups thriving on a natrual spring. It makes sense that there are no trees here. It's all swampy and they can't stand up.

More swamp.

What is that tree doing to that other one?

Betsy was hot and thirsty so she took the liberty of rolling in some mud.

Good dog...stay back!

This is the source of a stream that runs behind my parents' place and also the source of much fun for me as a kid. I'm finally starting to get my bearings a little at this point. Although I’m not altogether sure which fork of the spring I should follow. I followed the wrong one.

The water from this spring is really really cold and extremely tasty.

I knew exactly where I was when I got to this field. Not far from my parent's house in fact, I just took an extremely indirect route.

This spot is great. Some of the highlights of my adolescence happended right there.

A lot of the abandoned farm fields have fruit trees growing in them. This happens because birds eat the fruit elsewhere and deposit the seeds in the middle of the fields where the trees take root.

I was happy to see one of my favorite wild apple orchards in full bloom. You can imagine the smell.

A lovely bunch of Trillium along the road back home.

This is directly behind my parent's house. Betsy and I were pretty beat but glad for the adventure. My parents' were less than thrilled to see their dog return covered in black ooze from the swamp.