Finding Our Way

3.23.09

This one family outing that I'm about to share was a hilarious, enlightening, embarrassing, bonding experience all at once! I signed our family up for a night orienteering course through Chesterfield County Parks & Recreation. We regularly look into community opportunities to find fun & inexpensive things to do together as a family. This course sounded interesting, but there wasn't a whole lot of information about what we'd be doing. I was assuming it would be "led" somewhat by an instructor. Let me explain a little more...

We went into the office at the park and found out that those who signed up, were getting some direction from the instructor (if they needed it) and being sent out and timed. We were given a map of the park and a compass, and shown how to navigate from one numbered marker to another. Each were accompanied by a special punch different from all the others and when you found one, you punched your paper for that specific marker.

In all fairness, let me back up here just a bit. The night before I had driven the kids to a lock-in at a University two hours away, stayed awake all night and drove home at 8:00 a.m. We did all take a nap, but this little excursion at the park took place the following night at 9:00 p.m. It was freezing cold and we were not well prepared. It was called "Night Orienteering" and apparently there are people that are very, very serious about this skill! I had honestly never heard of it! Teams came in wearing impressive gear, and as soon as the instructor wrote down their starting time, they darted out the door excitedly! We made our way to the table where we were taught about the map and compass use. We headed out into the darkness looking forward to the challenge.

It was pretty cool knowing we were headed in the right direction, remembering all of the instructions we were given. Then of course we didn't find our first marker right away. We realized what a tiny thing we were looking for in this big, dark area! We went back to our map to see if we could decipher from anything on it there if we'd gone too far since there was plenty of woods ahead of us; we figured it wouldn't be too wise to just keep walking in the same direction assuming we'd convenientlly trip over it! We had gone too far, so we began to backtrack and finally found it! It was so fun! Kind of like a treasure hunt - just no treasure!

So, on we went, as my fingers began to numb. It was evident that we couldn't just stay on the paved paths and still find the markers. The markers were in the woods, and not all the paths were on the map! If you wanted to find the markers, you had to go with the most solid information you had, and that was from one marker to the next, you used the compass and headed out in the direction you were supposed to go. That was the very best way. If you maneuvered through the brush and branches without depending on the paths, you were sure to find it faster without having to stop and figure out where you were all over again! This is when we started laughing at ourselves! We only brought three flashlights with us and one was dying as we walked. We made it to our second marker in about an hour.

I began wishing we had known a little more what we would be doing because we really were leaning and having fun - together - and THAT ... is a family favorite! We talked about the truth we were having a hands-on "lab" in! We were deep into the woods; or at least as far as we could tell! The absolute best decision was one of trusting that the compass was smarter than our judgment in the pitch dark and obeying the needle's direction; we started giggling & talking about what a great sermon it would make. I think as we talked it helped us forget how cold we were! Then it slowly began to dawn on us as we headed for our third marker (#13)... we HAD to go into the office so they knew we made it safely back and to return our borrowed compass! We were sure we were SO CLOSE...about 4 different times! 45 minutes later, we decided to give up on blasted number 13 and turn back! When we emerged from the woods, we weren't close at all to where we thought we'd come out! Again with the giggling!

We had such a great time. I went in to thank the instructor. She didn't even smirk when we told her we only found two! Just then two serious night orienteers arrived victoriously through the door - sweat dripping from their foreheads! They had found them all! I have no idea how many markers were even noted on the map! All we knew is the instructor had kindly highlighted all the easiest ones for us to focus on!

We were all very happy to get back to our warm home and crawl our sorry selves into cozy beds! And that day I gained a new perspective on direction - even though I fell asleep thinking about #13!