Hi BlueJays.
A lesson learned about visibility into sun that you now realise you could have predicted with a bit of thought prior to the flight.
As mentioned several times above, 'well done' for being smart enough to ask for help.
Get yourself a really good GPS and teach yourself to use it.
Forget what the old timers say about this, the GPS will be your best friend when you fly and will certainly get you out of trouble sometimes.
Many decades ago I flew to a distant fly in on a day like you describe, except probably worse. I could not see more than about 1/2 mile horizontally, but the view straight down was fine. so I followed a railway line. It was some 20 minutes later, when things didn't 'add up', that I realised we were following the wrong railway line!
No harm done on that occasion, but if GPS had been around back then it wouldn't have happened! But I did learn from it - I never did that again!
There are three risks associated with flying into deteriorating visibility:
1. Hitting other aircraft.
2. Becoming disoriented, and losing control.
3. Getting lost.
Of these three, the one that seems to concern most pilots, way beyond the other two, is getting lost.
As we have now as good as eliminated the risk of getting lost, with the almost universal presence of moving map GPS systems., I fear that we have also eliminated the one thing that used to deter most pilots from continuing to fly into deteriorating weather.
MJ
Ps. You can't legally be 'VMC' and at the same time have a visibility of '... no more than about 1/2 mile horizontally...'