Losing Myself

I put out a rather strange request on the Internet over the weekend.

Are there any good places in OM to collect buckeyes aka horse chestnuts?

HoCo local (and sometime blogger) Ian Kennedy made this suggestion:

I don't know of any in Oakland Mills, but there are several trees along Wilde Lake near the boat house and barn.

So I went over there yesterday afternoon and I didn’t get very far because the lay of the land looked different to me. I think I located what Ian referenced as the boathouse, but where was the barn? I’ve certainly seen it before but suddenly I felt like something had changed and I didn’t  know where I was going.

Alas, I was not feeling the joy of discovery at that very moment and I gave up and went home. It had already been a long day for me.

So here’s my question. Has anything changed over there in the last several years that would make that left hand side of the road look different to me? Construction? Landscaping? Or have I just forgotten?
I haven’t driven by in quite a while.

Very likely I would have found what I was looking for had I gone a bit further down the road. But I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in unfamiliar territory. If I’d had my wits about me I would have popped over to take a look at that McMansionesque house I wrote about recently.

Has this ever happened to you? When you go to a place that you feel should be familiar but for some reason it has a feeling of the unknown?

While I have you here—do you know of any good places I can find buckeyes?