In case you’re new to Medium Cool, BGinCHI is here once a week to offer a thread on culture, mainly film & books, with some TV thrown in. We’re here at 7 pm on Sunday nights.
In this week’s Medium Cool, let’s talk about getting lost, but in a good way.
In the most recent New Yorker, there’s an article about a company called “Black Tomato” that specializes in pricey vacations in which they drop you in a remote place with minimal survival materials and you make your way from point to point, alone and disconnected. In the article the guy goes to the Atlas Mountains, in Morocco. It’s a good read.
That got me thinking about being lost, which can be frightening, but often turns into a memorable adventure. In my 20s, I spent a month in Ireland this way, with a backpack, just roving around and letting chance dictate where I went and what I did. I have a lot of great stories from that trip and others like it.
Tell us about an experience of getting lost that turns into an adventure, or a lesson, or at least a story.
Chetan Murthy
Am I wrong to think “that is some *rich people’s shit* alright”. People paying top dollar to be thrown out the back of a jeep with a jackknife and a half-empty canteen. Boy howdy.
P.S. Oh, I see: there’ll be sherpas along for all the hard bits.
raven
Ever been up in the Superstition Mountains looking for the Lost Dutchman Mine?
dexwood
@raven: No, but I was on Sandia Peak looking for the stash I dropped.
Viva BrisVegas
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”
For one thing I don’t have pay to get lost. I’m quite capable of it on my own.
raven
On one of our first trips together we went to St George Island. I had a boat chartered at Alligator Point and there had been a hurricane a couple of days before we got there. I tried to call the boat but got no answer and decided to drive over about 50 miles to make sure the reservation got cancelled. We had Raven but, for some reason, decided to leave him in the house and we set out. The road was washed out in several places and the state cops were there to help you get around those spots. Somehow we got off the main road and we were running out of gas. It was starting to get dark and we came to a sign that said “Tate’s Hell State Forest”! It was all tall pines so we had no idea what direction we were going and the needle kept dipping. Finally we came to a broken down shack that had a single gas pump out front and damn if they weren’t open and we filled up and got directions of of Tate’s Hell!
HalfAssedHomesteader
Everything old is new again. There was an organization back in the 70s called Outward Bound that did this drop-you-in-the-woods thing. Anyone remember that?
raven
@dexwood: Sweet, I had friends that lived in a cave up Pink Granite Canyon for an entire winter. . .with a stash!
raven
@HalfAssedHomesteader: Hoods in the Woods!
My niece works for an offshoot in Asheville.
eclare
In 2004 a friend and I were on Santorini and decided to hike to a popular lookout for the sunset. A few hours in we realized it was taking far longer than we had planned, and it was getting dark. We ditched the trail and ended up having to hitch a ride back to the hotel. First and only time I’ve ever done that.
I know a lot of people here have done that, but as a young female it is not something encouraged. But no regrets, out the back window of the van we saw the last minutes of the most amazing sunset
Eta> We were both female.
Scout211
@raven:
Yes. But we didn’t go far enough to actually get lost on that hike. Or find the Lost Dutchman Mine. My in-laws used to winter in Apache Junction and we hiked there when we visited a time or two.
NotMax
I’ve never felt lost. Am always (looks around, performs quick inventory of body parts) right where I’m present.
;)
raven
@Scout211: Up to Weavers Needle!
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: Yes, and restaurants sell peasant food to the the fashionable a huge mark up.
On topic: I remember coming back with a buddy to a friend’s house* in Kitzbuhel after a village festival that just happened to be on my birthday and missing the house. We ended up in a lumber yard at 7:00 am on a Sunday. Does that kind of lost count?
*It’s Michaela’s place. The young lady about whom I once explained to a friend, “Yes, I know you love Michaela; everyone loves Michaela.” She was a Kiwi.
raven
One misconception many people have is that the Outward Bound students at Sunset Island are adjudicated youths, or “hoods in the woods.” There are some Outward Bound programs elsewhere that are geared to at-risk or troubled teenagers, but all the students at Sunset Island have paid for the privilege.
Like me.
mrmoshpotato
A very strange definition of “vacation!”
Yes, I am completely judging.
Omnes Omnibus
Also, I am of the school who believes that if something doesn’t turn out to be fun, it might be an adventure that will result in good stories down the road.
raven
@mrmoshpotato: A lot of folks wouldn’t want to go on a 12 hour offshore deep sea fishing trip either!
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: See “The Blue House Raid“.
OzarkHillbilly
Question:
Does one have to leave their smart phone behind?
Anyway, been there, done that. And I didn’t have to pay anybody to insure I’d come back in one piece. (that is why people pay stupid amounts of money for the “wilderness experience” without the “wilderness risks,” right?) Of course, standing in the gut pile of a fresh jaguar kill while peering into the jungle searching for a pair of homicidal eyes isn’t for everyone.
FTR, I’ve never been lost. I’ve always known exactly where I was. Right. Here:
X
Now, finding my way back to camp was an adventure a time or 2. Once had a really difficult time making my way across a deep, mile wide sinkhole where the jungle was so thick I could not see the sky and 10′ in any direction was as far as I could see. Found myself wandering in circles on the bottom for more than an hour. Finally climbed up the wall and followed it around till I cut the trail. Got back to camp well after dark, *where a buddy of mine was threatening to cut somebody’s hand off if he tried to steal the food they were saving for me.*
I miss the El Abra.
**an exaggeration, but they were arguing about it.
HalfAssedHomesteader
@raven: What kind of hoods are we talking about?
Which reminds me of a kind-of-lost story — or at least a ‘get your ass out of here now that you realize where you are’ story. On my last day of Catholic high school in SW MO a group of us skipped out early driving around the countryside. We came upon a cave and found the remnants of a burnt cross from the night before. We had heard the Klan was still active in the area and this confirmation was a bit too real for comfort!
Scout211
As far as I can remember, we’ve never really been lost but we have gotten way off track backpacking a time or two. Two times that I can think of we ended up camping at lakes different than the ones we were headed to. And both times we were very happy with the lakes that we had never heard of before.
Those topo maps were not quite as easy to use as GPS is now. ?
Almost Retired
I would happily load up my Volkswagen with rich people and dump them in the Mojave for half the price. Cross post this answer in the small business thread.
WaterGirl
@HalfAssedHomesteader: I thought that was for troubled kids. Were you a troubled kid? :-)
WaterGirl
@Almost Retired: That’s twice today that you have made me laugh out loud.
edit: I may have to start paying you. Cross post that in the small business thread.
raven
@HalfAssedHomesteader: My kind
eclare
@Almost Retired: Hahaha…
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, sometimes even in real time, the only redeeming thing about a situation is being able to say “well, at least this will make a good story”.
HalfAssedHomesteader
@WaterGirl: Oh I was plenty lost as a kid. Think I’m more or less found now.
RaflW
@dexwood: Not a lost story, but I was on top of Sandia Peak once when there were still some good snow drifts in the wooded parts. I was wandering from spot to spot to get different views, in a light jacket, leather two-strap Ecco sandals and some bright colored socks (can’t recall if I was wearing shorts or maybe some light trekking pants).
Anyway, standing on the snow, looking at the views, a couple people strike up a conversation with me. As soon as I say I’m from Minnesota, they say “Well of course. You’re wearing sandals. In the snow. In early spring.” And laugh good naturedly.
HalfAssedHomesteader
@raven: <thumbs-up-emoji>
dexwood
When I was ten or so, ’61, a few of my neighborhood pals and I would go on penny walks purposely trying to get lost. We’d make our way to a neighborhood we didn’t know well, stand on a corner, flip a coin to decide right or left, make our way to the next corner, flip again, right or left, then keep moving with that method. Not quite Morocco, but it kept us entertained.
Omnes Omnibus
@RaflW:
FWIW, we have a little bit of sleet here and it’s about 32 degrees, but I just took the garbage out barefoot.
Spanky
I believe it was Daniel Boone who, after being asked if he’d ever been lost in the wilderness, said:
Omnes Omnibus
@dexwood:
I’ve been on drives in my car like that. Get on a back road and flip a coin at each T-intersection. It’s fun.
cope
Coming down off a very hairy climb of Chimney Rock in the San Juans in Colorado, we realized darkness would overtake us before we got back to the truck. It was my two brothers, a good friend from college and me. One of my brothers hustled down the rappel ropes and took off down the steep, forested slope back to the BLM road to where we had parked. The rest of us took a while to get down and then couldn’t get my climbing rope, doubled up for retrieval after rappelling, to come loose so we left it. Very quickly, we were in the most absolute darkness I have ever experienced. To convince myself it was true and that I literally could not see my hand in front of my face, I kept putting my hand out in front of me hoping to see something, anything. No moon, no stars and we had no lights. We basically stumbled several hundred yards down through the trees and deadfall (there was no trail), eventually homing in the shouts of my brother who had gone ahead.
We stayed near each other as we blindly worked our way down, each constantly tripping, falling and bushwhacking our way to the road. We finally emerged at the dirt road where my brother was with a ranger (just in case). The ranger said this had happened before and nature had steered us down a drainage in the topography. Maybe not so much lost as just not knowing where we were and where we were going.
A few days later, my college buddy and I made the hour and a half drive from town to go back up to retrieve my rope.
oatler
“What’s an adventure? Someone else having a tough time a ten thousand miles away.”
Captain C
I have a friend whose hiking philosophy is go out ’til you get lost, then find your way back. I did this with him once at the Mogollon Rim in AZ, and we had a blast.
Also, having been to Amsterdam around 10 times (relatives + North Sea Jazz + certain vices which will shortly become clear), I find that a) I always get lost at one point while I’m there (generally because I’ve convinced myself I know my way around better than I do) and b) the later in the trip it happens, the worse I get lost. The most extreme of this was once, on my last night, I decided to go to the Siberië coffeeshop. Somehow, I took, I guess, a right when I should have gone left, and within 20 minutes I was completely baffled as to my location in the city; not too long after I walked by the Heineken Museum, which is pretty much in the exact opposite direction from my hotel as Siberië (and given that it was night, was closed). Still not sure how I did that, especially since this was all before I started that night’s viceful breathing activities. I did know my way back from there, and arrived at Siberië just in time for it to close up for the night (they were nice and allowed me to buy some consumables). Luckily, another favorite coffeeshop of mine, Kadinsky, is nearby, and was open an hour later, so I went there to chill.
dexwood
@RaflW: Good story. Hardy individuals here dress that way all winter it seems. Exposure deaths in the Sandias often occur for those who don’t realize how fast weather conditions can change in the mountains. 64 degrees in the foothills when you begin your hike up a trail to the peak sometimes ends in blizzard conditions later.
Leto
When we were stationed in Italy we took a trip with our friends to Parma. We hit one of the Parmesan cheese factories, where we learned all about how they made Parmesan cheese, as well as Parma ham (uh-mazing!). The tour took about 2 1/2 hours and at the end of it, we decided that we wanted to go to the Medici Wine factory and see if they had a tour, as well as just drink some wine. It’s only about half hour away, so why not? Let’s go!
We load up into both of our cars, with us leading the way. Avalune had her iPhone out utilizing the GPS to get us there. We travel about 20 minutes and finally get to this huge round-about. We take the exit and are heartened because we see signs indicating a wine factory ahead. “Great!”, we both thought. As we get to our destination, it turns out to be a vineyard field but no buildings. At least not a “factory”. We do pass this small building and a huge barn structure. We travel down to the end of the road, wondering if the GPS had messed up, hit the next round-about and travel back down the same road. Nope, GPS still telling us the middle of this field is our destination.
So we pull off, have our friends pull in behind us, and we all get out to discuss what to do. All four of us conclude, well either the GPS is screwed up or the address is wrong. (Quick side note: GPS and back country Italian roads do NOT mix! We’d been led astray many a time, but had learned not to panic as we usually figured things out.) BUT there was that little building we passed, that’s where the vineyard signs led, so why don’t we try that? We all get back into our cars, do another u-turn, and arrive at the little building. As we pull in, we see all these people just doing work, basically looking like they were doing annual maintenance on their vineyard. You know… they look busy. But we get out, our friends get out, our friend’s wife speaks pretty good Italian so she starts in on, “Hi, how are you doing; is this a vineyard?” Conversation flows back and forth when she announces, “Yup, they’re going to give us a wine tasting, lets go!” These people basically drop everything and usher us into the barn structure which is an old wine cellar.
They lead us to this ancient looking barrel storage room which was transformed into a wine tasting area. We go through the door and on the right hand side is a big long table with chairs along the wall. We all sit, the people head off, and come back a few minutes later with the first wine, some cheese and meat, and a spit bucket. Over the course of the next hour, we proceed to sample their entire line. Roughly 8 wines and let me tell you, it was fucking amazing. All of it.
As another side note, Avalune doesn’t like wine. Just not her thing. Put wine in front of her and you’ll get the same full glass back at the end of the meal. With the exception of… dessert wine. So during this entire tasting, as we’re all just gushing over this amazing wine, she was basically “tiny sip… SPIT!”, until we hit the dessert wine. A typical Italian dessert wine is a sweet white wine. This one? Apricot flavored. It was spectacular. Avalune’s face lit up like a kid at Christmas. It was like nothing we’d ever have, before or since. She took the entire bottle and claimed it for her own. I don’t blame her because she basically had to suffer the rest of the time, so this was her pay off.
After the tasting we proceeded to buy two full crates of wine. One crate was mine, a mix of their amazing wines. One crate was Avalune’s and it was all apricot moscato. We’ve had quite a few “lost” adventures, but that was honestly one of the best we’ve ever had.
dexwood
@Omnes Omnibus: Fun is right. Once we assumed control of cars we carried on the same way.
OzarkHillbilly
@cope: I have awakened in a cave, in absolute darkness and held my hand in front of my face, and seen it even tho that was impossible. Other times I could see the ceiling of the cave, or most common for me was seeing geometric patterns.
The mind abhors a vacuum.
dexwood
@OzarkHillbilly: We fill in the blanks.
Steeplejack
* DVR Alert *
Late-night—or early-morning—bonbon on TCM tonight, 4:45 a.m. EST: The Hunger (1983), with Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and the now universally reviled Susan Sarandon. “A kinky couple from Manhattan satisfy their vampire thirst with victims in discotheques.” Don’t miss Willem Dafoe as “second phone booth youth.”
zhena gogolia
I’ve gotten lost in Moscow a number of times. Not fun.
I basically haven’t left my house since March 2020, so I have little to contribute to this. I really hate being lost.
Almost Retired
In 1981, I took a quarter off from college and bartended in West Berlin in a place managed by a guy who had been a foreign exchange student in my hometown. My first day off I visited East Berlin. You had to exchange a certain amount of money and cross back over Checkpoint Charlie by midnight. My Australian friend and I “lost” track of time (beer was cheap), and then lost our bearings getting back to the border crossing. The midnight deadline had passed.
We were convinced that when we got to the checkpoint, we were going to be shot or sent to Siberia (“American and Australian students are first tourists sent to the Gulag”). We were literally shaking with fear at the crossing. The East Germans rolled their eyes and sent us through.
I took one of my sons to Berlin recently and the dreary and menacing city of 1981 is a thing of the past.
SiubhanDuinne
I believe I mentioned the opera Hansel and Gretel a few weeks ago, in relation to food or dreams or something. But of course the entire second act is famously about two small children getting lost, in the woods, in the dark. I’ve seen it probably 40 or 50 times, and it never fails to terrify me.
As for real life getting lost, my adventures are pretty lame, but after I moved back to Atlanta in 1984 I made a point of exploring the vast northern suburbs (in my car) on weekends. Gas was cheap and there were no cell phones or GPS devices, so when I took off all I knew was that if I got hopelessly lost somewhere I needed to have someone point me toward either I-85 or I-285 and eventually I’d manage to find my way back home.
Metro Atlanta streets famously have no right angles (there are many places where it’s impossible to “go around the block”), and we have lots and lots of thoroughfares which cross at a sort-of perpendicular at one point and then find themselves running in more-or-less parallel a few miles on. Not to mention all the Peachtree Thisses and Thats, and other thoroughfares that just abruptly and arbitrarily decide to change their name at some random intersection because why the fuck not? I loved getting lost, and found again (“Oh, so that’s what happens to Shallowford Road! I’ll be damned!”). I might find myself in the rural wilds of Gwinnett County before it got all built up, or over amid the manicured lawns of East Cobb. And other, less savoury, locations.
Haven’t done one of those drives in many years, and may never again, but lord lord lord they were fun times, exploring my new environment
Eric S.
In 2018 I went to France for 2 weeks. The second week I was meeting friends for a bicycle tour through the Bordeaux wine area. We were to meet the tour group in the town of Libourne. I got my wires crossed and I arrived in Libourne on Saturday. I wasn’t supposed to be there until Sunday.
Once I had that figured out I found a hotel for the night and set about exploring the old ,samll, walled-town. They had a festival that weekend. In addition to the normal fresh markets they had stages set up on either end of town (~5 blocks apart) with different musical acts and local clubs doing demonstrations. Is there anything more French than watching a Kendo demonstration while eating ice cream?
I had a couple of great meals and a wonderful 24 hours in the town. I wasn’t exactly lost but it was one of the best days of the trip.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Being lost is fun probably if you are male. I wouldn’t know from personal experience.
eclare
@SiubhanDuinne: What were those two streets that intersected each other at two separate places about ten miles apart? In DeKalb. I want to say Briarcliff Road and LaVista? Very confusing roads in ATL!
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne: How are you feeling?
ETA: Are they going to do Tosca in HD? It got a rave review from Tommasini.
schrodingers_cat
OT question for Balloon Juice artists. Do you have any suggestions for easels? Is a tabletop easel a good alternative. I am just starting out so I don’t want to spend a ton but do want something sturdy and useful. Thanks.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Right. Try Istanbul in 1975 if you’re female ?
scav
@dexwood: Our version of that was our Little Green Man tours of Paris. Choose a neighborhood, pop out of the Metro and then go whichever direction the little green man pointed to at intersections. When tired, find the nearest Metro stop and you’re home free. (Somehow, our very first tour actually ran us past Dehillerin. Yes, the little green man loves us.)
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
A lot better than yesterday, thanks! It was all pretty minor, but I did get in a good long nap!
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne: Good!
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: Brilliant idea. I will store it for the future.
SiubhanDuinne
@eclare:
Briarcliff, LaVista, North Druid Hills, and Shallowford all cross each other at the most unexpected places! To this day I get hopelessly confused in that part of town.
Mike E
@HalfAssedHomesteader: 1980 Colorado Outward Bound School alumni here, 23 days in the North San Juan mountains and one of the last courses to do a 3 day solo where each of us fasted alone near a stream and had to tie a bandana on a tree branch each day to show we were still functional, heh. I was almost 17…we learned mountaineering and orienteering, and also starving!
eclare
@SiubhanDuinne: I lived in various apartments off N Druid Hills for about ten years. There were still times I ended up somewhere unintended!
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
You might want to think about one of these.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: I actually have an old school drafting table.
Keithly
“An adventure is the result of a bad decision whose consequences you are powerless to alter.” —Dr. K. Knuth.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
Alas, no. Not this season anyhow. We’ve had quite a few Toscas over the last several seasons, and I guess they decided to give it a rest for this year’s HD screenings. I expect it’ll show up on the schedule next year. On the other hand, *THREE COUNT ‘EM THREE* contemporary opera premieres on the Live in HD roster this season. I do love the standard repertoire — it’s classic for a reason — but I’m so glad the Met has managed in the last few years to break free of that old “we are a museum” mindset they had for so long.
prostratedragon
“American Girl in Italy”, by Ruth Orkin; Ninalee Craig, subject
SiubhanDuinne
@eclare:
I have no trouble at all believing you!
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
Lucky! I used to have my dad’s, but a roommate ran off with it. If you’re still working with watercolors, a drafting table would probably work best.
Steeplejack
Not a “lost” story, but I have had that experience of absolute darkness. My freshman year in college my family lived overseas, so I couldn’t go home for Christmas. And the dorm was closing for several weeks. So I went to stay at my grandparents’ farm in rural Tennessee. Middle of nowhere, no nearby neighbors, several years before they installed a “yard light” on a pole between the house and the tractor shed.
I was given the small side bedroom, and when I got in bed and turned out the dim little lamp I could not see anything—not even my hand six inches from my face. I couldn’t believe it. There was a window in the room, and I couldn’t even see the window, much less anything outside. Talk about a moonless night. So I lay there under about five quilts (no heat except the perpetual fire in the front room) and hoped I wouldn’t have to get up in the night.
Oh, yeah, and quiet. Very quiet.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: It can’t be as bad as downtown Atlanta. I went to Georgia in 2008 for a friend’s wedding. While I was there I somehow managed to get myself off 75/85* into downtown while looking for my hotel. And downtown is Peachtree EVERYTHING! I swear I actually got to the corner of Peachtree Street and Peachtree Street. I declared myself done and got back on the highway. I did eventually find my hotel but man that was a slog!
SiubhanDuinne
@Leto:
That is an amazing, funny, warm, wonderful story!
ETA: Realise that the above sentence pretty much reduces your great adventure to a Hallmark Christmas movie :-)
Not what I intended!
TheOtherHank
Fairly shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed, my wife and I were in St Petersburg (Russia, not Florida). The tour company that organized the trip we were on had given us a map of the St Petersburg metro system. This was very handy. But all the map was written in English but, you might not believe this, the station names are written on the walls in Cyrillic. We got on the wrong train and were completely lost.
On the flight over I memorized the Cyrillic alphabet so I could puzzle out the names, but it took a while. Eventually I was able to read the name of a station and match it up to the map and have time to get off the train. We changed trains a few times and made it back to the station near our hotel. It was actually a pretty fun way to be lost.
eclare
@TheOtherHank: I would be completely lost in that situation!
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
In Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, West 4th Street intersects West 10th, West 11th, West 12th and West 13th streets.
Also in lower Manhattan is Little West 12th Street, unconnected to West 12th. Just to add to the fun, the same area also includes a Jones Street, a Great Jones Street and a Great Jones Alley.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Did you have your booster and i missed it?
TheOtherHank
@eclare: The best part of the Russian/Soviet metro stations was the escalators. The Soviets built their metro systems to double as air raid shelters, so they are really far underground. The escalators are long, steep, and fast. To get on them you just had to believe it was going to work, walk up to the top of the escalator and step on. By the time you registered that you weren’t falling you were at least 10 feet down. You could tell the American tourists because they’d be standing at the top hesitating and being in the way.
eclare
@NotMax: Where I live now, Memphis, is on a grid. The river is west, and the major streets run east to west. Took a while to get used to people regularly saying things like the store you’re looking for is on the northwest corner of X street and Y street.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
No, haven’t had it yet. I really haven’t been out.
HinTN
@raven: Too many years ago to count, we headed for Orchard Gap just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in very southwest Virginia. Instead of taking the Interstate, I chose to drive the US highway through the mountains. The truck was running low and the hour was late. There, just at midnight in Independence was an open gas station. Whew!
We regularly drive through Tate’s Hell. Would not want to be lost there.
eclare
@TheOtherHank: Oh I would be terrified! There is a deep MARTA station in ATL, Peachtree I think, where the way the tiles on the wall are laid out heightens vertigo on the escalator. I was taking MARTA with my boss, started shaking, and she told me to sit down on the escalator.
I could not handle St. Petersburg.
HinTN
@HalfAssedHomesteader: Yep, it saved many a lost young person.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Unless am misremembering, Akhnaten is on the Met’s schedule for mid-May to mid-June, mostly concurrently with a Hamlet modern opera with which I’m completely unfamiliar.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
I used to live on West 14th. Not quite in the Village, but an easy walk.
zhena gogolia
@eclare: Or Moscow. I get terrible claustrophobia when I can’t see the top of the escalator. It sucks.
eclare
@zhena gogolia: Also good to know.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Akhnatan (which is incredible!) will be radio broadcast (only) on 28 May 22. The new Hamlet will be Live in HD a week later, 4 June. I do love the Thomas Hamlet, but am looking forward to Brett Dean’s take (don’t know this composer at all).
Almost Retired
@eclare: This! I didn’t think I had a vertigo/acrophobia issues until I got on that escalator at the main downtown Peachtree MARTA stop in Atlanta (a wonderful city, btw, as is your new hometown of Memphis – I am that weird subspecies of human who likes Memphis better than Nashville).
Leto
@SiubhanDuinne: Haha, all new Hallmark Christmas movie: A Christmas Detour! (which, apparently, is a real Hallmark Christmas movie from 2015); uhm, A Christmas Detour 2: More Wine! :
Edit: regarding Tosca, we were fortunate enough to be able to see it performed live in the Verona Coliseum. It’s identical to the coliseum in Rome, but it’s much more complete. The one in Rome has been trashed due to it’s popularity versus the one in Verona. Anyways, it was an amazing performance. The space priests took on an ethereal quality with that outdoor production.
Xavier
I used to work in an underground mine. If you turn off your cap lamp it’s completely dark. I remember blinking to make sure my eyes were actually open.
zhena gogolia
@eclare: Just take cabs, that’s what I do.
Kalakal
We lived in Qatar for about 9 years when I was a kid. One day when I was about 8 we went on a school trip to a place called Umm Said ( this was in 1968 or so, the place was very different then not the Las Vegas on steroids buildings you see now). There wasn’t much at Umm Said but there was a bit of Hollywood style desert ie Sahara style sand dunes which was really cool ( most of Qatar is stony desert). Being an adventurous little soul after a while I struck out on my own, went over a crest and had a great time wandering about at random for about 10 minutes then decided to head back. Then realised 3 things1) I had no idea where I was relative to where I’d started 2) everywhere looked identical ie sand dunes 3) my tracks were all over the place.
I set off in what I thought was the right way, climbed a dune and saw nothing but more dunes as far as the eye could see 360.
Completely disorientated I tried a different route – same result.
Panicked stated yelling for help.
A minute later entire class pops up about 100 feet away behind a different crest with a “What are you doing you silly sod?”. I was never more than about 300 yards from them, yet I was totally lost and disorientated going round at random.
was I ever scared. Completely disorientated, every direction looked the same, no landmarks and every lost in the desert movie I’d ever seen playing in my head.
NotMax
@eclare
Carlisle, PA has a West and an East North Street (same for South street), and a North and a South West Street (same for East Street).
;)
Amir Khalid
One very cold night I got lost in Stockholm trying to find my hotel. Being lost in an unfamiliar place is not a fun experience I would pay money for.
eclare
@Almost Retired: I just googled, MARTA claims that escalator is the longest in the southeast. After that near fainting episode, I always took the elevator. It reeked of urine, but no danger of tumbling down an escalator!
H.E.Wolf
I’m not at all comfortable when I get lost, but I do have one really good memory featuring my late father (an experienced and unflappable traveler).
The two of us were on a 3-day car trip through southern England, the only fixed point of the itinerary being a stop in Oxford to visit an old friend of his. My dad said on the morning of day 2, “Let’s just drive until we find a nice pub for lunch. I’d like one with maybe a thatched roof, near some water, where we can eat outside.” I mentally rolled my eyes at the unlikeliness of this plan.
We then proceeded to get lost several times. Each time, my dad would ask the nearest local person for directions to a nice pub with those attributes, and we’d follow the directions until the next time we got lost, etc. etc.
We ended up at lunchtime at a nice thatched-roofed pub by a riverside, with outdoor tables. The pub had been built in the mid-14th century… and I’d seen it on a TV program six months earlier, before the trip to England had ever been thought of. That was my dad, to a T. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Barley_Mow,_Clifton_Hampden
NotMax
@eclare
In Hawaii directions are often given by saying head either mauka (toward the mountains) or makai (toward the sea).
eclare
@Kalakal: That sounds terrifying!
Omnes Omnibus
Just off hand, how many of you keep an inner compass going in your head so you always know where north is?
Kalakal
@eclare: It was, I still remember it over 50 years later. The disorientation was the thing, I’ve got a really good sense of direction, always know where I am relative to where I start from and when I suddenly had no idea where I was I panicked.
trollhattan
Decades of backpacking gives ample opportunities to go astray. Hiking off-trail, hiking off-plan are different things. My biggest errors have been preplanned cross-country routes that dead-end, some lead to lost itinerary days.
I can get turned around in a city more easily than in the mountains, but it happens to me in both.
What mountains makes a difference. e.g., The Sierra Nevada and the western slope Cascade range. Go fifteen feet offtrail and in the Cascades and the trail just vanishes-the understory growth can be that thick. If you pay attention to which side of the trail you exited you’ll find it again, but it’s surprising how easy it is for folks to forget that bit. The Sierra generally has much more open visibility.
Trails also wash out or buried. I’ve been in deadfall forests so bad it takes hours to travel one mile. Not lost, but royally frustrated. I could charge some techbros and drop them in a place like that. “Your food is at the creek crossing. The creek’s thataway.”
Leto
@Kalakal: when I was about six (1981?) I had a similar experience at Disney World, in Florida. My grandparents took me, my sister, an our older cousin on vacation there. My grandparents let my cousin and I go to “race cars” they had, these cars on rails similar to slot cars, by ourselves. We went, raced, came back no issue. Well my cousin wanted to go again (he’s maybe 8 or 9?) so he left. I decide, I want to go again but leave maybe a minute later. I absolutely swore I knew where they were. I did not know where they were.
I then spent the next few minutes frantically trying to find the race cars, then decide to go back to my grandparents, at which point I lose the pavilion they were in. I am properly lost and I’m freaking the fuck out. After an eternity, I find a park cop, and declare: IMLOSTI’MSCARED IDON’TKNOWWHEREMY GRANDPARENTSARE SOBSOBSOB. They take me to park lost children give away coin machine (a guard shack), and proceed to locate my grandparents, sister, and cousin. I spent a little while there, long enough for the fireworks show to start, which one of the guards put me on his shoulder so I could watch. My frantic grandparents found me, didn’t shout or anything, and I lived to tell my terrifying mouse tale. it was a week long trip, but that’s the only part I remember. It’s also part of the reason I separation anxiety issues.
I do have some stories about Kuwait, from my first deployment, but they’re boring and don’t involved getting lost. Just lots of sand, heat, and sand in my eyes requiring a hospital visit.
eclare
@Omnes Omnibus: I keep an inner compass in my head, but it’s pointing to the west, as that is the big landmark. But of course if you know west, you know north.
eclare
@Kalakal: I’m glad you thought to yell out!
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m good except in fog. One reason to hate fog–no cues whatsoever.
Scout211
@Omnes Omnibus:
That tends to be more common in men. Women more commonly focus on landmarks. I grew up always seeming to focus on where the Mississippi River was located relative to where I was. That was usually east. Now I always seem to focus on the Sierras and that is east as well. Mr. Scout has more of an inner compass.
Kalakal
@Leto: That sounds just like the feeling I had
Dan B
@Omnes Omnibus: I have that. And I can figure out where I am from hearing directions or reading them, plus looking at maps. Got me into architecture school. I was with friends in Mumbai years ago – first time. In a car in downtown I remarked that the so and so museum was around the corner. My friends were awestruck. I’d looked at maps of Mumbai and simply knew where different sights were relative to each other. New Delhi was a challenge because the sights were spread out and the radial street pattern threw me off
trollhattan
@eclare:
Reading up on how kids become lost I learned they often feel they’re in trouble and instead of alerting searchers, will often hide and stay quiet. When the kid was young, I’d take her on little hikes. We both had our whistles and I had her practice going off trail, “hug a tree” and give the whistle three toots. I’d answer with two and come get her. It was a game and I tried to give her confidence that if ever lost, she would be found and it was her task to be a part of that outcome by helping the grownups locate her.
An empty, endless sea of dunes sounds very intimidating. “Where’s my hugging tree?”
zhena gogolia
@H.E.Wolf:
I was hoping this would turn out to be the pub in Morse, The Remorseful Day, but that’s Victoria Arms, Mill Lane, Old Marston, Oxford.
Leto
@Scout211: I’m a landmark person, though I attribute that more to growing up in the South where we really did use, “Once you hit the big tree on your left, turn right, head down to the fence…” I very rarely remember street names.
Craig
When I was a kid we lived on the edge of the woods that run into the chickahominy swamp. Me and my pals would run about out there all the time. Multiple Civil War battlefields intersect it, and we’d range for miles and miles and I never really felt lost. Me and my buddy were Boy Scouts in The Order of the Arrow, carried a compass and could always figure out where we were. I always knew that eventually we’d run into a field, or a road, or just follow a stream to something.
HinTN
I grew up in a small college town in the middle of the woods of the Cumberland Plateau. One day when I was seventeen I ingested a whole barrel of Orange Sunshine and went walking in this ravine in the middle of town that I had played in all my life. At one point I was convinced that I was irredeemably lost and would never be found again. Fortunately, I had enough sense to lie back in the sunshine on a mossy rock and realize that no matter which direction I walked I would encounter civilization relatively soon. Then I had to decide if that was what I really wanted right then.
eclare
@trollhattan: Very smart training!
SiubhanDuinne
@Almost Retired:
Oh Jesus god I am TERRIFIED of that escalator. I hate it so hard. Getting dizzy just thinking about it.
Craig
@Omnes Omnibus: I do. I grew up loving maps and orienteering and it just stuck.
Kalakal
@trollhattan: That’s really good training. Yeah the dunes give the same problem as you mentioned with fog – no cues
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: I keep an inner compass on freeways. As long as I know there’s a freeway to the *wherever* to me I’m okay. This of course is much more useful in urban environments.
H.E.Wolf
@zhena gogolia: ”I was hoping this would turn out to be the pub in Morse, The Remorseful Day, but that’s Victoria Arms, Mill Lane, Old Marston, Oxford.”
Would’ve been really nifty if it had been, and then discovered it here all these years later!
StringOnAStick
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m an inner compass person. I remember waking up from surgery in a room with no windows and immediately thinking “that direction is north”, and I saw that I was right when I was moved to the next room because it had windows. It’s innate for me and I’m rarely ever wrong. Now that we recreate on volcanoes, I’ve realized I must be taking my cues from the sun but I am good at night too.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Just follow your nose. Or maybe not.
;)
hueyplong
ellie
I’m from Northwest Ohio and among the area’s many high points, which include the Maumee River and rich Native American history, are its parks. Oak Openings is a 4,000 acre Toledo Area Metropark located in Swanton. For a couple of years, my husband and I lived so close to the park that we could cross the street during our lunch hours (we worked from home) and go for a hike or a run. Both of us knew pretty much every nook and cranny of the park.
Fast forward several years. A tornado touched down and took out a 110-acre stretch obliterating thousands of pine trees. My husband and I went for a hike after this happened. All of the landmarks we were familiar with were gone. We were lost. Nothing looked familiar. It was disconcerting and a little scary. We were lost in an area I used to know like the back of my hand. It was humbling.
Leto
@H.E.Wolf: I honestly thought I’d been to the pub you linked, as it’s similar to another pub Avalune and I visited a number of times. But after looking at via Google Maps, determined it wasn’t. Bummer. Looks really neat though, and glad you and your dad had a great time.
raven
@HinTN: I’ve been pretty lost in that part of Virginia.
trollhattan
Programming note: Started “Reservation Dogs” this evening and so far, it’s very good, some great characters.
Reboot
@HinTN:
It’s interesting that Tate’s Hell has come up in a thread about being lost:
https://www.hauntedplaces.org/item/tates-hell-state-forest/
sab
I grew up on a sandbar in Florida, so I have no sense of direction at all. My husband says my directional guess is usually 180° off about 90% of the time. So it isn’t useful at all because that 10% is correct, so we can’t even count on me being wrong all the time.
How do people navigate with cloudy skies, twisty roads and no mountain ranges on the horizon
ETA Or no horizon because of all the trees.
KSinMA
@trollhattan:
What a great way to train a child!
persistentillusion
I grew up in suburban Chicago, where one could “see” Lake Michigan because of the glow of the skyscrapers downtown. I moved to Colorado, where if the sun is up the mountains are apparent and provide an orientation.
A friend from Chicago came to visit, it was dark, he thought he was traveling east and instead ended up at Cheyenne Mountain Airbase (NORAD). People with guns objected to his presence and redirected him. He stopped shaking about two days later.
delk
I got my giant hit discotheque album.
BGinCHI
@trollhattan: LOVE that show.
BGinCHI
So many great adventures here. Damn.
I wouldn’t pay Black Tomato for a “vacation” either, when you can get cheaply, irresponsibly lost pretty easily.
I’ve heard Rome is the best city to get lost in, as you eventually just give up, eat a fabulous meal, and find your way back to where you’re staying.
Omnes Omnibus
@delk: A supermarket is a sad place in which to get lost. But imagine how Mick would feel in a Costco.
BGinCHI
@H.E.Wolf: That is a hell of a good dad.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI:
I’ve only been lost in Rome late at night when no restaurants were open. Paris is good on the same principle. Prague, though. I didn’t know the geography at all. The language is totally alien to me. And it was in 1990 before the hordes of Americans descended.
NotMax
Bad linky above (and when went to do something about it the power went out here). Fix.
@Omnes Omnibus
Just follow your nose. Or maybe not.
;)
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan:
Fog is fucked up.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: I want to go to Tokyo and ride the subway and get off, explore, eat, and do it again. So many cities I’d still like to explore…..
Leto
@BGinCHI: If you’re ever lost in Rome, don’t despair. Just follow these easy steps:
1) locate nearest gelato shop and pop in. Don’t worry, they’re basically on every corner.
2) get gelato
3) sit and think about where you need to go, how to get there, eat gelato
4) if still lost, repeat step 2 and 3 until you figure it out.
5) once you’re ready to leave, get some gelato to go. Trust me when I say it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.
There’s always the possibility that as soon as you step out of the gelateria, you’ll lose your way to your destination. Just go back to step 1 and you’ll be fine. ;)
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Prague is pretty simple. The river goes north-south, and you can see the castle from most places in town. Sure, the streets aren’t very straight like Paris, but it’s not so bad.
NotMax
OT.
Okay, now it’s getting really annoying. Within the past 40 minutes the power has gone out and then come back on again six times.
Luckily, no soufflé in the oven.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: At least it comes back on.
eclare
@NotMax: Any weather reason for it?
PJ
@Gin & Tonic: In Prague, the Vltava goes south-north until it goes west-east. But you’re right, most tourist will be in the south-north area, and there’s always a tall landmark to orient by.
NotMax
@eclare
Day 3 or 4 of on again, off again driving rain.
(Power went off twice more since my earlier comment.)
PJ
I got lost a lot this summer, walking across Northern Spain – often times the camino is poorly marked, and if you miss the one arrow, that’s it. But there are other trails marked all over the place, so you know at least that you are headed somewhere eventually, and with GPS, you can figure out which direction you need to go it.
Sure Lurkalot
In the days when you picked up a city map at the tourist info kiosk, we got totally lost in Toledo Spain. The tapas place we circled to get back to? Nope.
A very nice place to get lost in so no regrets.
Dan B
@NotMax: Blizard warning in Hawaii. Haleakala as well as Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea?
And thanks for not sending your atmospheric river. 19 inches rain in two months was a bit much but some plants loved the upper 50’s for many weeks. My just potted daylilies put out new leaves!
Dan B
@Leto: I thought Rome was very easy to navigate. There are so many tall landmark buildings plus the Piazzas. Each one is distinct. I stuck to the area between the Vatican and the Spanish steps. The second visit we stayed in a modest but very comfortable hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps. We had a view of almost all of the city so I had a mental map. I could even discern Piazza Navona and Campo dei Fiori.
H.E.Wolf
@Leto: “@H.E.Wolf: I honestly thought I’d been to the pub you linked, as it’s similar to another pub Avalune and I visited a number of times. But after looking at via Google Maps, determined it wasn’t. Bummer. Looks really neat though, and glad you and your dad had a great time.”
We did! Lots of good memories from that trip.
@BGinCHI: ”@H.E.Wolf: That is a hell of a good dad.”
Yes, he was. I miss him. I tell “grandpa stories” to the niece and nephew who were too young to have known him. :)
BigJimSlade
So, what does this have to do with a lovely picture of Cape Town, with Table Mountain (and I see the table cloth is on!) and Lion’s Head? :-)
Ruckus
While in the Navy, in 1971, we pulled into a port on the west coast of Norway. We were told that town was over 3 bridges. Two of us walked along over 2 obvious bridges and the next bridge we could see was a couple miles down the road and so we went. This was a tall bridge over a river navigable by ocean going ships, so high and long. We walked across and on the other side for as far as we could see the only thing that looked like a town was a supermarket and what we found out was a post office. We went into the market and bought a soda, asked the young cashier where the telephone exchange was, my buddy wanted to call his wife back in the states. She may or may not have understood us but she wouldn’t talk so we went into the post office. We were standing in line waiting our turn when the clerks stopped helping and shooed everyone out of the way so she could ask us what we needed. We said we’d wait but she demanded so we told her and the man in front of us told us he’d give us a ride to the exchange. After he was helped we went out to his Mercedes and he drove us there. He also told us that the bridge we were supposed to turn east at we had walked over. It was a bridge in name only, crossing a small creek.
Getting lost has never turned out as well as that day, we got to talk to a bunch of people in a foreign country that is beautiful, friendly and amazing and we got to walk on solid ground.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
Never lost, just not sure of the route. Head west young man, you’ll hit water eventually.
MuckJagger
Probably not quite what you’re looking for, but in 1984 two Meatheads from Maine drove up north a piece and went to see Bruce Springsteen in Montreal. Couldn’t get tickets down here.
Said Meatheads not being able to read a lick of French, we spent about 3 hours lost on the freaking freeway outside of Montreal, driving back and forth and in circles, unable to read any more than “Est,” “Ouest,” “Nord” and “Sud.” Surprisingly, knowing FOUR WORDS OF FRENCH proved inadequate to the task.