Sweetpea Bicycles

We just moved into a new neighborhood. This means a lot of things: Living in a mountain of boxes, chucking the stuff we don’t need or haven’t seen for years, and taking 20 minutes out of our morning to look for where we packed the soap. But the really big project is finding new running routes.

So last night around 7:00, we took off exploring. We had heard of some trails nearby and wanted to find them. We hit some pretty crazy hills right off the bat as well as some roads where bikes fear to tread. And finally after trucking up this huge hill, we found a small poorly marked trail to our left. Perfect.

An hour or so later, we were completely lost. Let me rephrase that: An hour later, we were completely lost in the woods within the Portland city limits. We finally managed to crawl our way out into a residential area and stopped at a gas station to ask for directions back to town. The attendant said with a heavy British accent “Go that way, down the hill, and if you get to hell you have gone too far.” Maybe a little dramatic, but it was a little misty out and it was getting dark.

So having been out way longer than was on the schedule, in fading light and finally on some city streets, we started heading down the hill back home. . . when we noticed another small poorly marked trail to our left. Time for a little more adventure. We got home after 9:00.

I love the fact that I can get lost in the wilderness in town. Sure, I am not going to run into anything big, but that doesn’t deter from the fact that we are running on an unknown trail only a foot or two wide. Most days I am content running what I know, but I always have to remind myself that the real joy is in getting off the grid and exploring. The difference between being lost and exploring, I think, is knowing what is behind you. That, and possibly the thrill of taking an unexpected left turn.