On Getting Lost

Since Stephanie was out today I decided to play hooky. Ate a quick breakfast, showered, and gathered my maps and directions to Hoogeveen. I started out at 12:45. Initially I was extremely confident. I knew where I was going, I'd been in this area before, and even though my directions to Hoogeveen were for driving, all the roads have bike paths next to or nearby, right? WRONG. I got to a junction with a larger road and 50m later the bike path stops. WTF?! I think, and cross the street to the information center that happens to be nearby. The map is useless/I can't figure out how to read it. So I go back to the junction and look at the map there. I'm like, 'hey, I can do this. Just follow this path to here and then go over here, then head south...' In reality it was more like 'Hey, here I am on this bike path. Wow it's pretty here. Oh look, a cow. Hmm, I wonder where that next turn is? Oh look, another cow.' I finally got to the next junction, but I choose the wrong path (not surprising) and didn't figure that out for another couple km. Turned back and got going in the right direction.

I pass over a highway. Good, I think I know where I am. WRONG, again! Somehow I've ended up junction of paths that I've been to before on my meanderings. This junction happens to be NOWHERE NEAR where I want to be. le sigh. Finally, I figure out which way to go and I head off. Before I know it, I find myself in Pesse! Success! Keep going along that route and wouldn't you know it, there's Hoogeveen! I wandered around for a couple minutes, but decided to head back fairly immediately. The time is now 2:45. Yes that's right, two hours have passed.

I find a little grocery store in Pesse and buy an apple and run into an elder gentleman and we talk for a few moments as I eat my apple. He worked in England for 15 years but hasn't spoken English in the 15years since he moved back to Holland. We talk about how anything worth doing requires practice- which is how he approaches English. He was really very kind.

Anyway, I head out of Pesse, and wouldn't you know it, I miss my turn. Or do I? Being that I have NO sense of direction, I doubt myself about having missed the turn. I keep going and going and the surroundings get more and more unfamiliar. Yeah, I should've taken that turn. But the highway is on my left, just as it should be, so I kept going. And going. Low and behold, there's the overpass for the highway (the biggest hill I've seen so far) and I'm back to knowing where I am. A few bumpy forest paths later, I'm finally home. The time is 4:00. Here is the map of my ride, I had to kinda guess about some of the paths, since there's no actually 'roads' through the forest. I didn't take many photos as I was focused on not getting lost, as much good as that did me, but here's what I got.

Forest path bike route
Very strange trash 'can' outside of Hoogeveen
Mansion. You know, the usual.
BUG. I sat down to figure out where I was (out side of Spier was the answer) and GAH, there is was.
You can hire a horse drawn cart and have a leisurely afternoon seeing the Dwingelderveld. How awesome is that?!

So all told, I went between 22-27 miles (can't be exactly sure since the paths I used aren't on the map) I'm exhausted and my legs feel like jello-raspberry flavored. Sadly, I couldn't time the trip to Hoogeveen because I got lost both there and back, but I'll assume it's about an hour. Hopefully I won't have any problems next Friday when I need to get to the train station to leave for Brussels....