Saturday June 30, 2007, because my bike was at the local bike shop for a tune up we decided to do a hike this day.  Joining me for the hike were both Bob and Pete.  Originally we were thinking about going from home to Lake Orion for lunch and then hike back home.   When Pete figured out how long this would take he suggested we do a little shorter distance.  The more I thought about the distance and the time it would take I agreed and checked with Bob.  We all agreed to reduce the length of hike by driving part way and parking somewhere.   

Pete drove and he picked me and Bob up around 9:45 am.  We parked the car at Delta Kelly School on the North West corner of Adams and Gunn.  By parking at Delta Kelly we probably saved a total of six miles or maybe a little more.  We still would end up going somewhere between 8 and 10 miles total.  Once we got out of the car in the school parking lot we started heading west through an open field behind the school and came out into a new subdivision.  After a short walk in this new sub we ended up coming out onto Kern Road.  Kern is a dirt road out in this area and not real busy so we figured it would be OK for our hike north. 

After walking on Kern for about ten minutes we all noticed that the horse flies were out in abundance.  After a few minutes of having to constantly swat the flies around us, we started using our hats to swat the flies off each other.  There files were extremely annoying.  At one point Pete screamed out that he was getting bit.  I decided to walk in the middle between Bob on my left and Pete on my right.  My strategy with this formation was that maybe the flies would attack Bob and Pete before locating me in the middle.  I don’t think my strategy worked because the flies were after me just as much as the other two.  We quickly decided that we wouldn’t take this road on the way back home, we planned to take another route to simply avoid these flies.  As we continued to walk along swatting flies we came up with a theory that the lack of horses in this industrial world in which we live was the cause for this problem.  We figured if there were more horses around the horse flies wouldn’t have to bug us.   

After a couple miles we finally got to where Kern runs into Clarkston Road which is very close to Paint Creek Trail (PCT).  We quickly got onto the trail hoping the horse flies wouldn’t be on the trail, and luckily enough the trail was horse fly free.  We continued our hike into Lake Orion the rest of the way on the trail.  We passed the usual small group of walkers, joggers and bikers along the trail as we headed north.  And in support of our new theory we did not pass any horses.   

The weather again was outstanding this day for our hike.  It was on the warm side, but the humidity was relatively low for this time of year so it felt very comfortable.  The sun was bright, helping warm us as we hiked.  As we got closer to Lake Orion we stopped for a couple minutes at the small pound with the wooden board walk and slatted railing to see if we could spot some fish and turtle.  We saw a lot of small fish and then we spotted a fairly large turtle swimming about.  The turtle must have been about 18 inches in diameter.  We watched the turtle until he dove into the weeds under the water out of our sight. 

After our short break looking into the pond we got back on track and finally made our way into the down town area of Lake Orion.  As we passed the lumber yard just before the main street of the old business section of town we noticed a bunch of blankets and tarps lying on the ground.  It appears people were staking out their claims for a spot to sit in either an upcoming parade or fireworks.  It was getting too late in the day for a parade so we figured there must be fireworks planned for that evening and people came out very early that morning or maybe even the night before to lay out their spots.   

As we continued on we could see the main street was closed to car traffic and a carnival was set up.  There were Carnies walking all over just killing time waiting for the carnival to open for business.  A lot of the Carnies were in the local restaurants eating either a late breakfast or an early lunch before having to go to work later in the day when the carnival opens.  We figured the city of Lake Orion must have a 4^th of July festival planned for later in the day with fireworks being shot over the lake after the sun goes down. 

Pete wanted to go to the Sage Brush for lunch, but both Bob and I wanted to go to the Poppy Seed instead.  We told Pete we could go to both places and get our meals to go and then eat outside somewhere.  Pete consented and we all ate at the Poppy Seed.  I got a breakfast sandwich and I think Pete got some sort of tuna salad sandwich and Bob got a vegetarian sandwich.  I know my meal was very good and it appeared both Pete and Bob enjoyed their meals as well.  We sat outside and ate at one of the little stainless steel tables in front of Poppy Seed.  It was noisier than usual sitting in that location.  The generator trailer that powers all the other items of the carnival was just a few hundred feet away and it was relatively noisy.  There were a couple Carnies in the Poppy Seed ordering sandwiches at the same time as us.  I find it interesting that the Carnies don’t get food from the food trailers associated with the carnival, you would think they would get a nice discount.  Maybe they know more than us about the quality of the food in these trailers.  This make me think twice about ordering stuff from one of these portable food trailers at special events. 

After our lunch we walked around the street looking at some of the carnival attractions before we started back toward the trail for our hike back to Pete’s car.  As we passed by all the blankets and tarps on the ground again we joked about how funny it would be if someone was to pile them all into a big pile.  This would cause mass confusion when people started showing up later that night for the fireworks.  Maybe if we were 30 years younger, and in Pete’s case 15 years younger, we might consider pulling this type of prank.  At this point in our maturity we certainly would never do anything  like this and we just walked on past.   

We didn’t forget about the horse flies we came across earlier that morning on Kern Road so when we got to that spot on the trail we just stayed on the trail about another mile and a quarter to the Adams Road crossing.  We got off the trail and hike along Adams heading south.  There aren’t bike paths out in this area so we had to walk along the shoulder for a ways until we got close to Gunn Road and the school where we had left Pete’s car. 

We were curious how far we ended up going on this hike, so Pete went to the gmap-pedometer.com website and routed out our hike from this day, click this link to go to the actual saved route or see the picture below.  It ended up being approximately 8.8 miles total, not a bad hike.  See below for a picture of our route that Pete made.
David Lindquist