06 September 2008

the accidental 75



today after solving all life's mysteries i set off on a bike ride, with the thoughts of riding over to brooklyn, in using a backwards route than i normally take. it's the little things that make the work seem exciting.

anyway, that's about 30-40 miles round, i guess. i rode to brooklyn, and then noticed some route markings painted on the road. thinking that perhaps i could add a little on, i started to follow them, down roads i wasn't quite familiar with, but eventually ending up on the route to martinsville, in, which is a nice little road along a bluff.

so i rode to martinsville, stopped at a gas station for a water refill and something to eat, then heads back the way i came.

a little while in i realized that on the way to martinsville i had completely forgotten the road markings, and noticed that they made a left i wasn't familiar with. in any case, i decided to explore that later.

back to brooklyn, almost, as i took a different road thinking that i could shortcut it home.

a couple turns, quite a few miles, and suddenly i had no idea where the hell i was. i thought i was going to run into familiar territory (that happens quite a bit) but it just wasn't happening. i called gina. "i am lost"

gina has a broken leg right now (rollerderby practice, it just happened, she's in a cast, we are fine), so i was hoping she could pull up the map and straighten me out. i didn't except to be far off.. but i was off on what ended up being a 17 mile loop. (see everything south of mile marker 55 on the map)

the other thing about being lost out in the middle of nowhere is that you have no frame of reference. "pull up a googlemap of bill smith road and sr 44" with no town reference doesn't always work. but if the road is named oddly enough - bill smith being a pretty odd name for a road, i'd guess - googlemaps will find it. and if gina wasn't home? your best option is always to backtrack, but when you think you have an idea of where you might be, and you're already sort of exhausted, backtracking is not what you want to do.

anyway, backtracking is what i did. and eventually i made it home, not exactly happy about being an idiot, but... whatever. i lived. and now i've got an idea for a new riding route, because where i was lost ties in to a few places i've been before.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had my first house fire on Friday night. New Baden called us out for backup. That was pretty exciting. Fires are hot.

Mike said...

it's too bad you're not a volunteer policeman, because then i could ask you if you shot anyone. i don't know what the smartass question for firemen is... did you hose anyone?

Anonymous said...

We've got the biggest, wettest hose in town.

But I don't think they'll let me put either of those on a shirt.