Lost in The Woodlands

What better way to rid oneself of frustration then to hit the trails early on a Sunday morning.

I prepared the family the night before, assigning each child a specific duty so that Dad's breakfast was well underway to being ready by the time I planned to be home (8:30 am)

I told Mark to stay up as late as he wished playing on his computer so that he would be sure to sleep in and give us time to get his Father's Day breakfast ready. He readily complied and came to bed well after 2:30 am.

I met Sara and Pat at Forestgate park at 6 am this morning. The plan was to jog about 2 miles to the trailhead of the George Mitchell Nature Preserve, run the trail loop there and then find the supposed trail that some other folks from the trail group had run that led to Creekside Village trails. We were hoping to put together about 6 miles of trails in the end and then jog the 2 miles back to Forestgate for a total of about 10 miles.

I decided to use my amphipod belt today which I haven't used since I started running with hand-helds, but I was tired and decided I didn't want to have to carry the bottle. This turned out to be one of the smartest choices I've made in awhile.

The jog in was a nice warm up and as we headed into the trails, our old friends, the horseflies, let us know that they were already awake and awaiting our arrival. It was then that I remembered that I forgot to spray myself with repellent. I think I could hear the horseflies smacking their little lips.

The idea was to find the trail that would go to the Creekside Village trails, so we took the turn-off to Bedias Lake. That was pretty much a dead-end, so we backtracked to the turn-off for the Wetlands. Last time I had been this way, the Wetlands were more like a lake themselves. Today, we were able to cross them and headed into the woods looking for a way to the other trails. Within a few minutes, we realized that there was not a trail in the direction we were headed, so we turned around and just like that, we had lost sight of where we came in.

We spent the next 2 - 2.5 hours trying to find our way out of the woods. After wandering around and around, and then realizing that we were wandering around and around, Sara and I decided it might be a good idea to try to utilize our Garmins as GPS units. We were able to find the compass feature, but not knowing from which direction we had come originally, it was difficult to determine which way we should head back. At first we decided to head towards the rising sun, east. We thought that if we at least kept heading in the same direction we would have to come out somewhere familiar. Unfortunately, the brush was too thick for us to get through and after several attempts to stay the course, we had to give up the idea of heading east.

The next thought was to head north and follow the creek. The only problem with this was that it appeared as though we had somehow crossed the creek and could not find our way back to the other side. As well, the creek had several little creeks off of it that threw us off our track a few times.

We were also trying to decide at what point we would need to call someone and who we would call. I was trying to figure out how much it would cost us to have emergency persons locate and rescue us. That coupled with the fact the Mark would never let me live down the fact that I got lost in The Woodlands, unless it was getting dark and we ran out of liquids, I would continue to try and find my own way out.

At one point I did say a prayer to St. Anthony since he is the patron saint of lost things and we were, well... lost.

Eventually, we found a way around the creek and lo and behold, we were on the path that we had started this trek from. Ironically, I glanced down at my Garmin, we were headed East and as we came onto the real trail, the sun was right before us. Amazing.

I called home to let them know why I was so late, but no one answered. They were all still sleeping. So glad I didn't need any help.:0)

We jogged the trail back to Flintridge and then jogged/walked back to Forestgate park. We managed to put almost 9 miles in, 4 of which was actual running.

So, a bit of trail running, a lot of trail hunting, helps take the frustration away. It was great being with Pat and Sara. Nice people. I wouldn't mind getting lost with them again, as long as we were guaranteed to get out before dark.

Once I got home, the kids had gotten up and started on breakfast. As I was tending to the 2 year old, I could hear the buzzing of the horseflies. I told myself that I was going crazy. About 10 mins later, I felt something in my shirt. It buzzed. It moved. I screamed and out flew a horsefly! I killed it and felt much better. No more lip-smacking for that guy.