Have you ever gotten super lost? What happened?

Well...when I was three we lived in Cleveland, Ohio and I wandered away. Not sure if I knew I was lost or not but somehow ended up in a police car.

I've been lost plenty of times when I was doing long bicycle rides. That can be a bummer when you're riding a hundred plus miles and realize you're twenty miles off course and have to back track.

Other than that just getting lost during road trips (back in the days of paper maps).
 
Out in the mountains working as a Forester and hunting. You just keep walking.........lol

I have 2 stories though, I wasn't the lost party in either one.

In South East Alaska, the worlds only temperate rain forest - 2-300" of rain a year - I was out w my "partner" whom I didn't respect as a co-worker. We were paid the same but she lacked experience and any sense of where she was in the woods. We used aerial photographs as a map to find our way around, there was no GPS at the time. The woods were thick, wet dense forests, steep country, w huge trees(sitka spruce, hemlock, AK white cedar) and more mosquitos that you can imagine. She had worked in dry, open country in Wyoming prior to this job.

We completed our work on a Friday and were to leave the island to return to base for the weekend; we worked 8 days on and 6 days off. For whatever reason she decided she wanted to find her own way back to the truck and got lost for hours. Needless to say I took an azz beating from the rest of the crew for not getting off the island as scheduled and delaying everyone's weekend.

(Years later in 1988 driving home from the Yellowstone fires in our fire engine we were driving through Jackson Hole WY and there she was on the sidewalk w her husband.)

The 2nd one was 2 good friends were up in the mountains elk hunting and they got turned around and ended up crossing into another drainage and got hopelessly lost. They ended up walking to the river, the Deadwood River in Idaho, and spent the night on a huge flat rock w 2 bon fires burning all night for warmth. They had 1 can of vienna sausages to eat btwn the 2 of them.

The next morning around 10am they had managed to make their way back up to the road system and we found them walking back to their vehicle. They were pretty thristy.
 
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This happened when I was a younger I think I was 7 or 8
I was with my parents we were at a store, I think it was Kmart , we were outside my dad was looking at some lumber ,my mom was looking at hanging plants, I wandered off, the next thing I remembered a security guard found me asking if I was lost,I was crying.
My parents were happy to see me, I can't remember anything else.I bet when we got home I was punished e.g. spanked, or sent to my room for the rest of the day
 
I was visiting the hospital while on a treatment that made me very foggy headed. Went out to the parking building, wandered from one level to another, clicking the alarm fob...hoping to pinpoint the location of my truck. I thought I was absolutely doomed, took a good 45 minutes but I finally found it. :rolleyes:
 
Yep, I can remember one memorable event that almost caused me to perform mayhem upon the Spousal Equivalent.

Park City, Utah. Summertime. I wanted to ride one of the chairlifts up to the top of the mountain and back down. The Spousal Equivalent reluctantly agreed to accompany me but, as he has serious problems with heights, he insisted on getting off at the top instead of just continuing on down. He urged me to just stay on while he walked down. I wish I had taken him up on that.....

The attendant at the top assured us that it was about a 40-minute walk down the mountain and that the trail was clearly marked and WE.COULDN'T.GET.LOST. Remember that statement.

We started down and promptly lost the trail. Several times. At one point, we crossed a large open area that was still covered in hard snow and ice. Half-way across, I broke through the crust all the way to my hips. I was wearing shorts so I got my legs scratched up on the ice. We had no water. We had no snacks. We got lost several more times.

At no time was I truly worried about REALLY getting lost because as long as we kept going downhill, we'd eventually hit the town. At least, I hoped we would. At that point, I also hoped a bear would come by and eat the Spousal Equivalent. Slowly. And painfully.

I was mad at him for days.

About 3 1/2 hours later, we hit the town. I was so mad
 
Two friends and myself decided to hike the Appalachian Trail when we were 20. We were somewhere in North Carolina when we accidentally got off the trail. We stayed together and finally came upon a lodge with some hunters inside. We sent one guy in to ask for help because we didn’t know if they were killers or what. They were good guys that drove us about 15 miles into a small town where we spent the night and then was able to get back on the Trail and finish it in Maine.
 
I did. We were in New York and I had the morning to myself so, decided to seek out a shop which someone had told me about - Century 21. I was wandering around the station, obviously looking like a lost tourist because, a police officer asked if I was lost. He walked me to the right exit, gave me directions and wished me a great time in New York. He was so lovely, I was tempted to go back and get lost again ;):)
 
I used to get lost all the time before the advent of GPS. I have Visio spatial dysfunction and one of the symptoms is an inability to instinctively know my left from my right, compass points, which direction I came from, where I am in relation to other focal points etc.

I habitually point in the wrong direction when I’m discussing where the grocery store is, where the corner is, where work is. I have to think for several seconds while I work out left and right and can’t give directions to Ron on the fly….I just have to point which way to go. Doesn’t matter how familiar I am with a house l, if it’s two story I simply am incapable of telling you which room is directly above me.

Consequently before GPS technology I would routinely get lost. My then husband, and my kids from a young age, would not be surprised to receive a phone call from me telling them I was lost and asking for their help to get me to my destination.

As soon as the portable gps tech became available my kids all pooled their money and got me a Garmin…remember those? 😉 They weren’t cheap back then, but a whole new world opened up to me once I had that!! 🎉
 
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Ronni said:
I used to get lost all the time before the advent of GPS. I have Visio spatial dysfunction and one of the symptoms is an inability to instinctively know modern from my right, compass points, which direction I came from, where I am in relation to other focal points etc.

I habitually point in the wrong direction when I’m discussing where the grocery store is, where the corner is, where work is. I have to think for several seconds while I work out left and right and can’t give directions to Ron on the fly….I just have to point which way to go. Doesn’t matter how familiar I am with a house l, if it’s two story I simply am incapable of telling you which room is directly above me.

Consequently before GPS technology I would routinely get lost. My then husband, and my kids from a young age, would not be surprised to receive a phone call from me telling them I was lost and asking for their help to get me to my destination.

As soon as the portable gps tech became available my kids all pooled their money and got me a Garmin…remember those? 😉 They weren’t cheap back then, but a whole new world opened up to me once I had that!! 🎉
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Yep, I remember the Garmins. :)
 
It was in Venice, Italy. The streets are like mazes. I had dinner with some friends, then attempted to walk back to my hotel. I walked for what seemed like hours. Also in NYC. I'm not used to numbered streets. I attended a cocktail party, then tried to walk back to my hotel. I finally broke down and asked someone where it was. Heck, I've gotten lost in parking garages.

I have a terrible sense of direction. It is one of my weakest attributes.
 
seadoug said:
It was in Venice, Italy. The streets are like mazes. I had dinner with some friends, then attempted to walk back to my hotel. I walked for what seemed like hours. Also in NYC. I'm not used to numbered streets. I attended a cocktail party, then tried to walk back to my hotel. I finally broke down and asked someone where it was. Heck, I've gotten lost in parking garages.

I have a terrible sense of direction. It is one of my weakest attributes.
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This is also my weakness - terrible sense of direction! I got lost in Rome, Italy years ago, after standing outside to see the Pope at the Vatican - and on my way back, I took the wrong bus. I ended up walking for hours also. The hotel's name was Opera, but the people I asked sent me to the Opera house. Even the telephone booths (yes, they had them at the time) which had telephone pages, had the pages of the hotels ripped off. But I did find my destination! Now, with GPS and cell phones, getting lost probably happens a lot less these days.
 
My ex and I were around Vicksburg, Miss. We were two Yankees, sightseeing in the Bible Belt, where by law there has to be a church on every corner of two streets. We thought we were on the right road, but it became swampy with moss on the trees. So we kept driving, and driving and driving. The moss on the trees was something we didn't have in PA. Then the road went from 2 lanes to one, but we figured the road led to someplace, and we had come a long way already. Then the road became a dirt road. Somehow, we got on a side road, way out in nowhere. Wherever we were there were no houses, or anything but grassy areas and mossy trees for miles. We kept driving. Then there was a foot path that crossed the dirt road, and wouldn't you know it- there was a church. There were no houses for miles around, so I had no idea who could go to that church. We kept driving and ran into the Mississippi River and a paved road. This was about 4 hours of driving.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
My ex and I were around Vicksburg, Miss. We were two Yankees, sightseeing in the Bible Belt, where by law there has to be a church on every corner of two streets. We thought we were on the right road, but it became swampy with moss on the trees. So we kept driving, and driving and driving. The moss on the trees was something we didn't have in PA. Then the road went from 2 lanes to one, but we figured the road led to someplace, and we had come a long way already. Then the road became a dirt road. Somehow, we got on a side road, way out in nowhere. Wherever we were there were no houses, or anything but grassy areas and mossy trees for miles. We kept driving. Then there was a foot path that crossed the dirt road, and wouldn't you know it- there was a church. There were no houses for miles around, so I had no idea who could go to that church. We kept driving and ran into the Mississippi River and a paved road. This was about 4 hours of driving.
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Wow, what a story to find that church in such an isolated place! Glad you made it out ok!
 
While waiting for the wife and newly born son to able to fly and join me, a friend and I
would set out on weekends to visit as many old B-17 bases we could find around our area in
England. ( East Anglia )

My interest in these sites started when I watched the opening scenes of the movie, "Twelve O'Clock High".
One of the characters visits a run down, abandoned B-17 base he was once stationed at.
I wanted to walk around some of them and pay my respects to those who flew so many missions.

We got lost a lot and made many wrong turns on our journeys, armed only with some old maps
noting the locations.
Many of these former bases are now on private land and we met some very friendly people
who allowed us to wander about and answered many of our questions.

Getting lost just added to the excitement when we finally found one of those bases.
 
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