Get Lost, Dirk.

One sub-quest of my pilgrimage to Forty-Two Places was following in the footsteps of Dirk Gently’s midnight cigarette quest. Mark and I did it in the daytime, and I must have been occupied by my MapMyRide app, a fantastically nifty little thing I had become addicted to during cycling training.

My plan was to use it throughout the trip to document my exact routes. I could turn it on and it would locate me anywhere in the world, make a map of everywhere I went, and share it with my husband o...