Welcome to the Old Lyme Notebook, a place for quick thoughts and anecdotes about the town you live in. I thought I'd start out with a personal account of how I came to know your newest Old Lyme officer, Martin Lane, and a couple of troopers from the Westbrook barracks (Troop F).

I hope that by now you're all familiar with The Day's new hiking guide. I went out to the Lay property, a 185-acre property off Lord's Meadow Lane, on Wednesday afternoon to gather details and photos for the guide.

Reader, I got lost. Hopelessly lost. It was 6:30 p.m. and, though the sun was still up, panic was setting in. I had somehow gone from the orange loop trail to the blue loop trail and ended up looping around and around the blue trail with no idea how to get back to my car.

This is the kind of adventure-gone-wrong story we reporters write police briefs about. "Lost hiker found mauled by coyotes," I envisioned tomorrow's headlines would read. "Faithful companion, the dog, nowhere to be found."

So I called the police. The helpful dispatcher sent out state trooper Paul Gunn, his police dog Sieger, and Lane, who just joined the Old Lyme Police Department not a full week ago.

The officers found me a little over an hour later, huddled by a tree stump and shivering. Just kidding. The faithful companion and I were fine, just covered in mosquito bites.

You can rest in peace knowing your tax dollars are helping reporters with no sense of direction find their way home. Thank you, all, and a special thank you to the officers for the fine rescue.