2009-03-07 33 -84

Expedition

NWoodruff

Spring is once again in the air here in Atlanta. Another perfect hash for another perfect day. I got notice of the change in plans for Woodveil so I arrived at the hash a minute or two after 6pm. I waited a few minutes before I knocked on the door to the residence. Mr. Gill answered and approved my request to take a few pictures at the back of his drive way.

After the pictures were taken, I waited around till about 6:30pm waiting for the two Woodveil guys. They never showed. So I took off for Norcross about 6:35pm.

Woodveil

The short story: Fail, with a quarter-mile to go.

The longer story: It was a beautiful spring day in Atlanta, and the hash was well within MARTA + bicycle range. It was also fairly close to another of my favorite disc golf courses up here, East Roswell Park Disc Golf Course, so I was looking forward to a second 2009-02-13-style hash. I'd originally planned to set out early in the morning, get to the course and play a few rounds, grab lunch, and leave plenty of time to bike the remaining 8 miles to get to the hash at 4:00. The opportunity to execute that plan was slept through, and so I decided to aim for 6:00 instead. I was en route before 2:00, so I had four hours to play a little golf and do some cycling. Still manageable. Then things started happening.

MARTA was on its weekend schedule, which I already knew, but what I did not know was that it was down to one track, so I had to transfer at Lindbergh Station, which ended with me missing the 2:35 bus. There goes a quick half-hour. A flipped-over car on 400 didn't help the bus get to my stop any quicker, but once on my own, some nice downhills helped me regain some time. Get to the course around 3:40. This begins the best part of the story, where I play a quick round and finish +1. I started a second round but I had a hash to get to, so I only finished the front nine. I left the course around 5:15, leaving forty-five minutes to ride eight miles. Maybe I'd be a little late, but I'd still be there. Enter some fast downhills and soul-crushing climbs and with less than two miles remaining, my chain comes off. And wedges itself between the spokes and cassette of my back wheel. Very fortunately I was on a sidewalk and not going very fast, because my back tire immediately locked up. The first thing I did was check the time and, I kid you not, it was 6:01. If I hadn't been so pissed I would have laughed. It took half an hour to get the chain free, and another couple minutes to put my bike back together and try to wipe some of the grease off of my hands.

I got going towards the hash once more and was at the corner of Mt. Vernon and Wellshire, the top of the neighborhood, around 6:45. The delay had cost me thirty minutes of daylight, and I had to make a tough decision. I figured even if NWoodruff had seen the Wiki and been there at 6, he surely hadn't stuck around for 45 minutes waiting. Sunset was 6:39, and I was on a bike at least three miles from the nearest MARTA station. I really don't like cycling at night. The hash was on someone's property, so even if I did get there it could've just as easily ended with a No Trespassing consolation. And the road into the neighborhood was downhill, meaning another climb on the way out. So less than a quarter of a mile away, I chose to use what little daylight remained to get back to MARTA.

It was already dark when I got to the Sandy Springs station, which told me I'd made the right decision. I am particularly averse to cycling at night, and after all, it's just the internet. There would be plenty more randomly generated sets of coordinates later. I finally made it back to my dorm at 7:40, capping off a nearly six-hour adventure. All in the name of geohashing, and I didn't even reach the point. I guess sometimes that's just the way it is.

Expedition Summary