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Quickly I grab the compass and twist it, but alas the red needle floats again to my left. I look up again to make sure that no one saw me during my moment of idiocy. I briefly imagine that invisible force that has such a stubborn grasp upon my simple compass. Then I take the map with the compass on top and turn the map with its black parallel lines to match the red needle floating above. Voila, the map is oriented! I am a genius! 'Where's the crowd now?'
Just then I catch a glimpse of motion above me and to the right. Swooping from over head and down the hillside sails a large black bird with a red head. 'Wow! Could that be a woodpecker?' I had never seen one before. But now, standing still so long, even nature was moving on with out regard to my threat.
Once again, I glance down at the map. It is like a model of the entire park only really small; One 10,000th the size of the real thing to be exact. I am facing the direction that I had set out to go. Therefore, 'I should be able to figure this out', I think to myself. Keeping the map oriented to north I notice a large yellow area on the map. "Yellow represents the open treeless areas", I recall the man saying. That should be the field that I started from. I see a heavy brown line along side the Field. That should be the road and parking area. I picture my car, reduced in size, on the map, in its tiny little spot. At the edge of the field, in the farthest corner from my body, as I hold the map, I notice a black dashed line commencing and meandering through the remainder of the map. It looks like a long segmented snake. That must be the trail! I gaze and wonder where on that black dashed line I am currently standing.
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