Day 16- Wrong Way Martin

So, Stan Martin is our route planner. He's amazing- he looks at possible routes for the day, looks at possible camp sites and distances and weather and then gives us the options.
And Stan also gets into a mindset where he wants to put in k's and get them done so he trundles off at his pace (which is faster than the rest of us want to go) and motors on, leaving us behind.
Last night Stan showed Murray and I the route for today and then this morning I pulled out the map and looked at the route and we talked about it- the roads we'd be on, where we turn, what direction we turn and where we'd end up- today it's at a lovely little campsite called Peaceful Oaks near Stuartburn (a lovely Scottish name- "Stuart" is certainly a Scotts name and "burn" in Scottish is a stream- it's a lovely place and the owners, Phil and Michelle Friesen are a lovely couple. If you are in this area and looking for a place to camp, whether in a tent or RV or trailer, check this place out!). We all seemed pretty clear where we'd be going and how we'd get there.
We started off, in a bit of rain and into the wind for about the first hour and a half or so, on track. Wayne and I were cycling together, having started a bit later than Stan and Murray. Stan loves to stop at Tims or McDonalds for a coffee. You can imagine his glee when there were signs for both in Winkler, Manitoba. He stopped at Tims for a coffee and Murray ended up at McD's (using the washroom). So, Murray started out before Stan. And Wayne and I, not seeing their bikes at either of the places, carried on. We ended up ahead of Murray and Stan and when James saw us biking, he stopped and let us know that we were ahead of the others. We waited for Murray and the 3 of us carried on, thinking it wouldn't be long before Stan caught us. We made the turn from Hwy 14 onto Hwy 30 (one of the turns we all discussed making!) and after we had gone a couple hundred yards up Hwy 30 I looked onto Hwy 14 to see if I could see Stan. I did and we all expected that he would  follow us. I kept looking back to make sure that Stan had made the turn only to see him go sailing by the turn! We flagged down a driver and asked him if he was turning right (he was) and if he would let the rider in the bright yellow shirt know that he missed his turn.
Stan eventually caught me (I was assigned to wait at the next turn to make sure he didn't miss that one too!) and we carried on. He had his reasons for not turning, none of which made sense to the rest of us but they did to our fearless route-planner! The route he was on would have gotten him to where we were to end up but he would have missed lunch. All was well in the end but I think we're going to have to make crystal clear that we all know where we're going and what route we're going to take to get there.
Come to think of it, that's a pretty good plan for life. If we assume we know where we're going and don't have a plan as to how to get there, we're going to get somewhere but it's not likely that where we end up is where we started out intending to go. Me, I need to be intentional about things or I'm not going to be effective in my life. And who wants to live a life that isn't effective. It doesn't sound much like an effective life to me.

Warren