2009-02-26 48 12

In a wet, muddy field, about 1 km west of Landau an der Isar.

dawidi with Tomcat and Hans

Tomcat had announced, about two weeks prior, that he would like to celebrate his birthday by going geohashing this year, preferably in his home graticule 49,11, and Hans and I agreed to join him.

When the coordinates for the 26th were published, we decided to hash in 48,12 because it was closer and easily reachable by car. The point in 48,11 would have been even a bit closer and also accessible, but in a forest, which is even more boring - in a field, you at least have a scenic view of the darkness around you. After the coordinates for the 27th were published, just a few hours before the expedition, it turned out they were in another field and reachable by only a minimal detour on our way back, so we decided to do a midnight hash there.

Tomcat and Hans fetched me from my home after I had returned from work, and we had a quick and uneventful drive on the Autobahn to Straubing and then south on a federal road to Landau. After navigating from the exit to the nearest point on a road, just over a level railway crossing, we got out of the car and did the last couple of meters on foot, into the field. It was, in some places, still covered in wet snow, partially had thawed into soft mud and, to a surprisingly large part, consisted of pools of melt water. We managed to find a way around them and were relieved to find that the exact spot was not flooded.

After spending a few minutes at the coordinates, taking several long exposure photos with a tripod and drawing more lightmarks, our fingers got cold from the wind, so we returned to the car to celebrate Tomcat's Birthday Geohash. We had some cake, made by Hans, lit a candle and giggled at what an odd but rather nice birthday party this was.

I also marked the back of a warning sign with chalk. We then drove through Landau to an old, rusty railway bridge over the Isar which now was used for a cycleway, to look for a geocache. Which, after thoroughly searching both from the bridge and from the muddy track below, we eventually found and logged. As it was well past 21:00 by that time, we got back into the car and drove to Straubing, about half of the way home. It was raining there, but we were hungry, so we found a mexican restaurant and had enchiladas, after Tomcat assured me they were not entirely unlike what I usually eat. (Which turned out to be correct, I just didn't know the specific dish and its name.)

The report for the second hash on that expedition (after I finished eating) follows at 2009-02-27 48 12.