Cardinal Directions

52

Despite what my best friend thinks, I actually have a 
very good sense of direction, certainly around BC anyway. She says I get lost all the time, and she’s right, but, if and when I do, it’s usually mostly on purpose. I prefer to think of it as “taking the longer, or more interesting, route”.

When I am in my home 
province, I usually have a pretty good sense of time of day, where the light 
is, and relative direction I need to head falls out of that accordingly.

I spent so much time on the backroads of BC with my Dad when I was a kid, and I’m still I’m often enough on a maze of logging roads far between towns; it’s pretty rare for me to be truly lost, but it does happen, and the adventures that fall out of being lost usually make for entertaining conversation later on.  I enjoy the solitude and the puzzles when I take a different road, for a bit of change.

Predictability is highly overrated.

Sometimes I’ve had to backtrack when I’ve encountered a locked forestry gate, but that hasn’t been often. I am only recently using my phone for
 directions, and more often than not it only confirms what I already think; I still like paper maps and have map books for the province in the glove box 
in the truck and have motorcycle road maps in books on the shelf in the office.

I like paper maps 
because you can spread out a large area view of where you are relative to
 what’s around. We have such a myopic view of the world around us, I find it
 humbling to see how small I am in the space around me. There is so much more
 to see and learn about than what is in visible range.

I remember doing 
some orienteering in school, a very, very long time ago. And when we bought the 
boat we took classes, and later taught in them, on plotting and charting.
 Understanding compass headings is kind of important out on the water where
 dangerous objects lie beneath the surface. When we are out and about, in a boat or in the truck, I’m usually the navigator when we need to actually know where we are and where we need to head. It’s not that Kirk isn’t a good navigator, it’s just that he’s usually too busy enjoying the scenery to remember to pay attention.

But back on land, I
 honestly usually wing it.

Getting lost is usually fun and you find some great
 places that you may otherwise not have discovered. When we travel elsewhere, I
 find the usual tourist traps overcrowded and suffocating; they bore me. When we 
decided to try out an all inclusive hotel a few years back, I was perhaps a bit
 disappointed in the excursions. We made the most of them; I always sat right
 behind the drivers and peppered them with questions about the economy, the
 schools, the food, the plant life, the tourists, and so on. I suppose the planned touristy
 stuff might give you a brief overview of what’s around, but they are too often
overly commercial and an artificial portrayal of the real world that lies just
 a block over that-a-way…somewhere…away from where most people venture.

To be fair, I have friends that really travel off the beaten track, in countries I will probably never visit, and I really admire them for their courage.

Sure, I end up
 asking directions to get back sometimes. But that’s a really cool way to meet
 the locals and test out some of the language you’ve been murdering. At least
 you’re trying. We’ve had some fabulous fun getting deeply buried in back roads
 and off the normal tourist tracks. If the tour guide says go left, I’ll
 probably veer right….on purpose.

I approach travel
 the same way I approach cooking….. With flexibility for new and pleasantly different
 combinations.

There are always two
 norths, which one you choose depends on how you travel.