Celticfrost, I am jealous!
Sunday was one of those rides that was only great if you are a cyclist. Everyone else thinks it sounds like a nightmare. My husband and I ran some errands, and I had him drop me off with my bike when we were done. I took off down some backroads that I have never been on, with the intention of meandering my way home. My legs felt like lead, and I had no energy. I just wanted to throw in the towel and take the shortest route home. Then I hit a beautiful, rolling, winding, carless, freshly paved road. The sun was shining through the dappled shade, and I felt fantastic.
Then I got a flat.
Not knowing where I was and being down to an old patchkit, I decided to use my Garmin to plot my way home. Garmin kept trying to send me down beat up, rutted jeep roads with my skinny tires. It was sending me in circles because I wouldn't take those roads, and I had to reboot it to get it to cancel the route.
By this point, I realized that I was only a few miles as the proverbial crow flew from a town that I knew, but I was in an area with a bunch of dead end roads, so I tried again to get directions from Garmin. However, based on the roads and fields that Garmin tried to send me through, I decided that it wasn't the best route.
At that point, I just started using it as a compass. I found a large creek that flowed in the direction that I needed to go. I knew that it had to eventually flow into the river that flowed near my house (I put my brain in hiking mode). The creek wound around, and for a short stretch I had to take a not-so-bad gravel road, but it ended up less than 10 miles from my house.
It ended up being a nice little adventure.