{"id":3659,"date":"2011-10-10T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=3659"},"modified":"2012-02-01T08:04:55","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T13:04:55","slug":"the-game-of-getting-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2011\/10\/10\/the-game-of-getting-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"The Game of &#8220;Getting Lost&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Confused Yet? by RobStone, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rob_stone\/5143383207\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" alignright\" title=\"Confused Yet?\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4006\/5143383207_d948b10b86_m.jpg\" alt=\"Confused Yet?\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I had the day off from work today (Columbus Day in the US) and since it&#8217;s been unseasonably warm lately, I decided to jump in the car, go for a drive, and &#8220;get lost.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Getting Lost&#8221; is a game I began playing with my friends back when I first got my driver&#8217;s license. The rules of the game are very simple:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pick a direction and start driving<\/li>\n<li>Whenever you have a choice of which way to go, go the way you have never been before (or the way you don&#8217;t know where it goes)<\/li>\n<li>No turning around (unless you can&#8217;t go any further)<\/li>\n<li>No using maps (or, these days, GPS)<\/li>\n<li>Always come to a complete stop at all stop signs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>OK, so that last rule is a bit of a gag rule from when I was young and still learning to drive properly &#8211; but hey, you&#8217;re supposed to do that anyway, so it&#8217;s a good reminder.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, the idea of the game is to get lost <em>on purpose<\/em> &#8211; to go places you&#8217;ve never been before, and (eventually) make it home. The idea is that at the end of the game, you&#8217;ll have learned about the ways you&#8217;ve driven.<\/p>\n<p>While it helps to have a good sense of direction (as I do), it&#8217;s not absolutely necessary. Although if you are the type who gets easily lost, you might want to bring a GPS or something similar. You can&#8217;t use one while you&#8217;re playing the game, but you can use it once the game is over and you want to go home. (The &#8220;Go Home&#8221; button on many GPS units is wonderful for this.)<\/p>\n<p>This was a great game for me and my friends to play when we were all learning to drive &#8211; after all, it helped us learn our way around in a time when GPS didn&#8217;t exist, and all you were likely to have to help you navigate was maybe a street atlas (if you were lucky).<\/p>\n<p>Learning the lay of the land and which roads went where was a handy skill to have back then &#8211; and it&#8217;s still a handy skill to have today, even with GPS being so common that many cars have it built right into the dashboard, and many phones have some sort of GPS or GPS-like capability built-in as well. (It was also a handy skill to have since the state I lived in at the time &#8211; Massachusetts &#8211; is not exactly known for having full street name signs on every intersection!)<\/p>\n<p>Of course as time goes by, the longer you live in one place, the harder it is to really &#8220;get lost.&#8221; But this is part of the fun as well &#8211; it becomes more and more of a &#8220;challenge&#8221; to find someplace you&#8217;ve never been before.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately for me, I now live in New Jersey, and although I&#8217;ve been here for a few years now, New Jersey is a bigger state than Massachusetts (EDIT: actually, technically it&#8217;s not bigger &#8211; it&#8217;s smaller &#8211; but gosh darn it, it <em>feels<\/em> bigger), and there&#8217;s also nice big states bordering it (New York, Pennsylvania, etc.) which means there&#8217;s lots of potential places to &#8220;get lost.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Even though I&#8217;m much older now, I still love playing this game. You never know what you might find in some out-of-the-way corner of the world, and honestly sometimes it&#8217;s just nice to go for a drive, without necessarily having a particular destination in mind.<\/p>\n<p>If you are ever bored or are feeling the itch to go exploring, and you have access to a car (or motorcycle, if that&#8217;s your thing), I highly recommend picking a direction and just start driving, and as that old poem says, &#8220;take the road less traveled.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: smaller;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/2.0\/deed.en\">Photo credit<\/a>: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rob_stone\/\">RobStone<\/a>, via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rob_stone\/5143383207\/\">Flickr<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The game of &#8220;taking the road less traveled,&#8221; and getting lost &#8211; on purpose!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[81,393],"class_list":["post-3659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cars-and-trucks","category-personal","tag-driving","tag-games","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-X1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":755,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2006\/07\/09\/driving-adventures\/","url_meta":{"origin":3659,"position":0},"title":"Driving Adventures","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Wherein I purposefully try to \"get lost\" in order to discover fun\/interesting new places when out driving. Once again, I am not disappointed!","rel":"","context":"In &quot;personal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6041,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2024\/09\/12\/on-the-road-scotland\/","url_meta":{"origin":3659,"position":1},"title":"On the Road: Scotland","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 12, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"What is it like driving in the remoter parts of northern Scotland? I got a chance to find out...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Our rental Mercedes C200 wagon parked alongside a road, high up in the Scottish highlands","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2023\/08\/Our-rental-car-high-up-in-the-Scottish-highlands-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2023\/08\/Our-rental-car-high-up-in-the-Scottish-highlands-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2023\/08\/Our-rental-car-high-up-in-the-Scottish-highlands-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2023\/08\/Our-rental-car-high-up-in-the-Scottish-highlands-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2023\/08\/Our-rental-car-high-up-in-the-Scottish-highlands-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2023\/08\/Our-rental-car-high-up-in-the-Scottish-highlands-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1662,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/01\/18\/driving-with-game-music\/","url_meta":{"origin":3659,"position":2},"title":"Driving with Game Music","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Suffice to say, I enjoy game music. I also enjoy making mix CDs for driving, and when I say \"driving\" I usually mean \"driving fast.\" One of my most recent mashups was particularly good, so I figured I'd share the components here so everyone can enjoy. Metroid Cranial Syphon [Kay-raid]\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;fun stuff&quot;","block_context":{"text":"fun stuff","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/fun-stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":222,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/09\/16\/dont-game-and-cook\/","url_meta":{"origin":3659,"position":3},"title":"Don&#8217;t Game and Cook","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 16, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"So, I sit down to play some Diablo II... and I get kind of involved in it. Problem is, I had put some french fries into the oven. And lost track of time. Result? One very burned set of french fries. D'OH!","rel":"","context":"In &quot;personal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3353,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2011\/02\/01\/keiths-winter-driving-tips\/","url_meta":{"origin":3659,"position":4},"title":"Keith&#8217;s Winter Driving Tips","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Some common-sense tips for driving in the snow and ice of winter.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Cars and Trucks&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Cars and Trucks","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/cars-and-trucks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1367,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/10\/14\/behind-the-wheel-2007-chevrolet-trailblazer\/","url_meta":{"origin":3659,"position":5},"title":"Behind the Wheel: 2007 Chevrolet Trailblazer","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I rented a 2007 Chevy Trailblazer to drive Amanda's parents around in as we did a big tour of New England in the fall, so I had plenty of time to get aquainted with this vehicle - on both highways and tight city streets. And I can say, unoquivically, that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Cars and Trucks&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Cars and Trucks","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/cars-and-trucks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}