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| Author |
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tpryan
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Getting lost
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Oct 8 23:55 UTC 2003 |
I had to get away today. I got lost.
Well, I was trying to be lost. To travel the road I had
not been on before.
Warm day, sunshine, windows down, sun roof open.
I headed south on Platt, trying to continue sough after
roads eneded and had me going west for a while. Barely paved
roads, some dirt. If I found US-23, I would know where I was,
not fitting the objective of getting lost. I ended up in Ohio.
No sign greeting me, but I did quickly notice the difference in
the road signs (caution sign smaller, as where street name signs).
The cars in driveways with Ohio plates where a dead giveaway.
I was only about 4 miles into Ohio, when I found The Roadhouse
and had lunch (pot roast beef sandwich, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn).
Then returned trying to find a different road. Didn't quiite have
a unique path back home, put got home anyway. (duh!).
You ever try to get lost? To find that road you had not been
on before?
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| 58 responses total. |
aruba
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response 1 of 58:
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Oct 9 00:22 UTC 2003 |
One night, shortly after I moved to Ann Arbor, I went for a walk and just
wandered around. After a while, needing a goal, I decided to try to climb
to the highest point I could find. I ended up at the sewage treatment
plant.
Took about 3 hours. That was 13 years ago, and I still haven't forgotten
it. It was a powerful experience, but I can't explain why.
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scg
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response 2 of 58:
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Oct 9 00:50 UTC 2003 |
In most places, my long rambling walks are in areas that I have enough of a
mental map of that I at least have some idea where I must be, even if I'm not
somewhere where I've been before. I did do such a long rambling walk in
London a few years ago, which eventually wound up at Buckingham Palace.
My New York walk stategy when I spent a couple non-consecutive weeks there
this summer tended to be to walk until I didn't feel like walking anymore,
and then take the subway back to Greenwich Village, where I had started. I
ended up walking from 4th Street up to Central Park at one point, but I don't
think I ever could have considered myself lost. The streets are mostly a
numbered grid.
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other
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response 3 of 58:
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Oct 9 01:38 UTC 2003 |
I have a hard time getting really lost, but whenever I take a trip on the
bike, I always try to take routes I have never before traveled.
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glenda
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response 4 of 58:
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Oct 9 01:58 UTC 2003 |
When I was pregnant with Staci, it was a very hot summer. The only air
conditioning we had was in the car. We spent a lot of time in the car. I
would either read or stitch on some project. STeve would drive. Damon, age
3, would navigate. They thought it was fun to try to get me lost. We would
drive with Damon pointing the direction and picking when and direction of
turns. After a few hours STeve would say time to go home,"which way is home,
Mommy?" I would look up from book or needlework glance around and point,
"that way." I never really paid much attention other than initial direction
away from home. Always had STeve drive straight home without much bother and
much quicker than the drive out. Damon never got tired of trying to get Mommy
lost.
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gull
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response 5 of 58:
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Oct 9 02:27 UTC 2003 |
The only way I ever learn my way around any new city is by getting
repeatedly lost until I build up some kind of subconscious mental map of
how the major streets fit together. Once I have that, I'm never lost
for long...I just need to drive until I cross a major street I
recognize.
Every city has its own confusing features. In Ann Arbor it's how many
streets merge, seperate, and change names. In St. Paul, it was the fact
that you couldn't follow any straight street in the grid for more than a
couple miles before hitting a lake.
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murph
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response 6 of 58:
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Oct 9 02:56 UTC 2003 |
I find it hard to get lost in Michigan--things generally run in sensical
directions. New Jersey is another story. I suspect there are faster
alternatives to every path I take, but I'm afraid to look for them. Every
alternate route I've tried has ended in me getting horribly confused and
frustrated. No road runs straight out here.
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gelinas
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response 7 of 58:
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Oct 9 03:30 UTC 2003 |
I don't have a sense of direction. So I drive around until I build up a map,
much as gull does. I can usually find the cardinal points, from the sun.
But I can (and have) gotten lost in a building, most recently Zingerman's Next
Door, sitting in the Kid's Room. (I finally figured out where that room is,
in relation to the building and outside.)
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sholmes
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response 8 of 58:
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Oct 9 04:14 UTC 2003 |
I knew the way t omy friends place but not how to get back from there ..so
while it took me 20 minutes to reach (on foot ) it required full 1 and 1/2
hrs to come back ..and on top of it I got caught in the rains while returning.
Talk about bad sense of direction.
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michaela
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response 9 of 58:
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Oct 9 06:13 UTC 2003 |
It's harder to do downstate, but I did this while living in Marquette. I would
go for long drives about twice a week, and I always found nifty stuff way out
in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes it was really spooky if it was nighttime,
but I loved those drives.
I never got truly lost, but I often ended up nowhere near where I thought I
was. :) I remember the time I realized I was in Wisconsin and about four hours
from Marquette. Heh.
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rcurl
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response 10 of 58:
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Oct 9 07:08 UTC 2003 |
Last week I went to a meeting in Kalamazoo, not having been there before.
I had to drive between where I stayed in a motel and where the meeting
was on campus. I deliberately took a different route each time I had to
go back and forth. I had looked at the map going there, so "internalized"
the lay of the land, and could dead-reckon from that. I do enjoy exploring
areas this way - even getting "lost" a few times (in housing developments,
usually).
I explore caves the same way. By noticing things along the ways - and
having a moderately good sense of direction, or at least sensitivity to
clues to directions (I have been known to look out the window driving at
night to check stars) - it is hard to get significantly lost.
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tsty
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response 11 of 58:
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Oct 9 07:26 UTC 2003 |
wellll, i coldn't recommend random travel for spelunkers, however, on
the earth's surface i hoist a toddy to tpryan for his adventure!1
what fun! what fun yoo must have had! what a thrill to get somewehre and
tehn find out where you happen to be adn what surprises that location
may offer.
oh, btw, yes, i ahve done the same - multiple times. leisure time and
its investment in newness is a throughly refreshing activity.
i think we can both recommend it.
cheerrzz to tpryan!
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sj2
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response 12 of 58:
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Oct 9 07:49 UTC 2003 |
My parents stay at a cement factory colony in almost the middle of
nowhere in India. To reach the place, you can take a shortcut from the
main road that goes thru open barren land and a few hamlets. In the
night time once you take the detour from the main road, the only light
you can see is that of the factory about 20 miles away.
So me and my friend were driving down from the city one day and took
the detour. For almost one hour we ran around in circles in complete
darkness trying to head towards the lights of the factory. The open
land has so many dirt tracks criss-crossing that which one to follow
was a confusion. Driving straight wasn't an option with paddy fields
in the way. Finally, we woke up some villagers at 2AM and asked for
the way. Again after getting lost a couple of times, we managed to
reach the place with the fuel almost emptied out. Heading towards the
lights sounded easy but doing it was much tougher than we thought!!!
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sj2
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response 13 of 58:
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Oct 9 07:52 UTC 2003 |
Today, I am headed to one of the three turtle beaches in Oman. The
drive is through open country with good possibility of getting lost on
the way. Unlike India where you find villages every few miles, this
place has no villages or nomads for several tend of miles. So wish me
luck!! :)
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mcnally
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response 14 of 58:
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Oct 9 07:58 UTC 2003 |
I've often set out without knowing where I'm going, but I can't recall
ever successfully getting lost. Nowadays I don't expect to do much of
either. You can't get lost on the road system here because there's just
not enough road to do so. And getting lost off the road system, either
on the water or in the forest, would be pretty likely to be fatal.
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jep
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response 15 of 58:
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Oct 9 12:26 UTC 2003 |
I often go for a drive at lunch time, and see how far I can get from
work while returning within a reasonable time. My sense of direction
is poor so this can be adventurous. When I worked in Farmington Hills,
I took a 2 1/2 hour lunch by accident a couple of times. That was
uncomfortable as my employer at the time was tight about the lunch
schedule.
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gull
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response 16 of 58:
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Oct 9 13:40 UTC 2003 |
Re #6: I have no problems with getting lost in rural Michigan, where
roads are usually straight and follow compass directions and you can see
landmarks from a long way off. I get lost very easily in cities,
though. (Granted, in the U.P. the roads aren't straight, but up there
there just aren't that many roads and there are often prominant
geographical features to use as guides.)
Actually, I'd venture to say I've never been *truely* lost in rural
Michigan. There have been times when I wasn't sure exactly where I was,
but I pretty much always have known what general direction to head in.
Re #9: I used to do that too, when I was living in Houghton. It was a
lot of fun. Often I'd look at the topo maps in the library and pick
some spot that looked interesting, then try to get there. Places at the
end of long gravel or dirt roads were ideal.
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md
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response 17 of 58:
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Oct 9 14:02 UTC 2003 |
When I lived in Springfield, Mass., I was puzzled by a diagonal line of
lights visible in the night sky, seemingly a half-mile or so away, as
if on the side of a very large building. But no matter where I was in
the city, the lights never changed appearance -- they never looked any
closer or father away, the angle never changed. WTF? Nobody seemed to
know what they were. So, one night I decided to go find the mysterious
lights for myself. I aimed the car straight at them and started
driving. I went through neighborhoods, across parking lots, down
expressways, always keeping the lights directly in front of me. They
never changed! Finally, I found myself driving downhill on a narrow
dirt road, through a wooded area. At the bottom of the hill, the road
ended at the Connecticut River. And there, straight ahead on the other
side of the river, was that line of lights, no closer than it had been
when I started. At that moment, it finally sunk into my thick skull
that I was *obviously* looking at something very big and very far
away. In fact, it was obviously the line of lights on the ski trail
near the summit of Mt. Tom, a big (1,400 feet or so) hill that I had
gone skiing on many times. From where I was sitting on the river bank,
it was still probably ten miles away. Feeling very foolish, I had to
back the car back up the river bank to the main road, only to realize
that I had no idea where I was. It took me forever to get home.
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mynxcat
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response 18 of 58:
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Oct 9 14:52 UTC 2003 |
It's next to impossible to get lost in Columbus. Drive long enough in ny
direction and you're bound to hit I71, I70 or I270. Sometimes even 315. Once
you're there, you can get home. Or I can get home
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polygon
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response 19 of 58:
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Oct 9 14:57 UTC 2003 |
Berlin used to work that way, too. No matter which way you went, you'd
eventually get to the wall.
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scott
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response 20 of 58:
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Oct 9 15:46 UTC 2003 |
I usually don't get lost, mostly because I prepare with maps and directions
ahead of time. Plus I've got a pretty good sense of space.
Still, when I was in Philadelphia this summer I got somewhat lost at one
point. I'd gotten directions and had a map, but between three different sets
of number systems (local highway/route numbers, freeway exit numbers, and
obsolete/old freeway exit numbers from construction changes) I ended up going
a pretty good distance on the wrong road. Took a fair amount of map work to
figure where I was, and how to get where I wanted to be.
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keesan
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response 21 of 58:
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Oct 9 16:14 UTC 2003 |
We take maps along biking but just wander around sometimes when on foot.
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tod
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response 22 of 58:
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Oct 9 16:43 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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rcurl
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response 23 of 58:
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Oct 9 17:01 UTC 2003 |
One of my most memorable experiences of being "lost" was on a nonstop
(except for fuel) trip to California from Michigan with some friends. I
was driving through Kansas City after midnight and took a wrong turn on
the freeway and ended up crossing the Rockies on US-50 rather than the
planned I-70. Of course, we knew where we were, sorta, but the route from
Salida to Grand Junction, where we rejoined I-70, on a moonless night, in
the wee hours, included some of the most desolate several hours I have
ever experienced driving, with only a few lights visible at great distance
(sometimes none at all), really no sense of the surrounding dessert or
mountains - just blackness - and also no other cars for hours at a time.
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happyboy
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response 24 of 58:
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Oct 9 17:07 UTC 2003 |
re22: "and then the alzheimer's caused me to poop in my
britches which nova used to draw me a map to the
underground poop-school in the forbidden zone where
i met many other neurologicallympaired members
of the NRA who had a really neat A-BOMB!"
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