I got lost on my first solo x/c too. Departed TUL and was vectored north quite a bit before being told to resume own navigation. When they said that - I turned to my planned heading (270) and headed west. A lot of my checkpoints were rivers or roads going north/south - which I passed on just like I had planned. Problem was - I was 20-30 miles north of where I should have been
In the end - I saw AN airport - landed there - found out it wasn't the one that I was planning on landing at
Like you hotbwayjoel - I was pretty upset with myself, but as saab said - take it for the experience that is was and learn from it.
USMCFLYR