"Are We Lost?"

On the very first day of our trip when we left the Harley dealership for the hotel I led us there like I had lived in San Jose my whole life. The next morning it took me less than 2 minutes after we left the hotel to get the two of us hopelessly lost. I had carefully researched the route and knew exactly how to get out of town and to the coast, or so I thought. Just to add insult to injury after wandering aimlessly around downtown San Jose for half an hour I faked out Ray and sent him down an off ramp while I carried merrily on down the freeway. It took me several minutes to notice he wasn't lurking in my rear view mirror, then find a place I could call him from, then he got bad directions on how to get to my location, with the final result being that after an hour and a half of riding, we were exactly 6 kilometers from the hotel. In the wrong direction.

This set the tone for the trip so far. While it's not unusual for us to get lost for a time on any given day, I have consistently managed to get us lost every single morning within a few minutes of starting to ride.

A few days ago after we'd spent an hour or so wandering along a series of deteriorating mountain roads we pulled over into a small turnout in the trees. We hadn't seen another vehicle for half an hour, and that one had been a mud covered high lift jeep disappearing up a mountain trail. There had been a couple of mailboxes stationed at the end of what might have been driveways, but those were the only signs of civilization.

As soon as we got off the bikes, Ray looked across at me and asked the inevitable question: "Are we lost?"

Without hesitation, and doing my best to sound as upbeat as I could as I replied "Nope!"

Ray: "Then where are we?"
Me: "Colorado!"
Ray: (rolling his eyes) "Where in Colorado?"
Me: "East of Dolores, west of Denver"
Ray: (heaving a long sigh) "Half the state is east of Dolores and west of Denver. We're lost."
Me: "I think you're overstating the situation. Lost implies more than simply not knowing where we are, we also have to not know how to get to where we want to go."
Ray: "Well, I don't know where we are, or how to get to where we want to go. Do you?"
Me: "How much gas have you got?"
Ray: "About 3/4 of a tank."
Me: "Are you hungry?"
Ray: "I'm starting to understand why you always insist on a big breakfast."
Me: "So we've got gas, we're not hungry, it's a gorgeous day, a fun road, it's still early, what are you worried about?"
Ray: "Yup. We're lost."

He was right. We were lost. So what? It was still a nice day.