2009-09-09 44 -92

Location

A mile or two north of Douglas on County Road 3.

Participants

Mark
C-Dog

Expedition

8:31 - Check coordinates. Data not yet available. 8:32 - Check coordinates. Data not yet available. Darn! 8:33 - Lather. Rinse. Repeat. ... read work emails for while ... "Hey! Coordinates! That's not too far away." Zoom in a little. "Even closer than it looked at first. Zoom in some more. "Woah. That's right on one of my short bike routes. The really short ones. Sweet!"

As the ideas began to build in Mark's mind, it raced from an easy continuation of his consecutive hash streak, to a nice way to mix a bike ride in for a bicycle hash, to a great opportunity for a Tron hash, to an even sweeter opportunity for a circus hash, as his new unicycle was just being delivered that day. Considering who would be up for an adventurous bike ride, Mark checked with C-Dog to see if he'd like to join, and they set plans for an expedition after work.

With all the gear loaded onto his bike, and a theoretically functional GPS-track-recording configuration mounted, Mark waited for C-Dog to ride over from the office. Finally having everything ready and no C-Dog yet, Mark grabbed his new unicycle to see if he could ride it well enough to bring along for a circus achievement. Well, unicycles are not something to be trifled with. After ten minutes of painful efforts, he hung up the unicycle, leaving it for another day's hash and hung out waiting for C-Dog.

Heading out, Mark and C-Dog rode casually as far as the bike trail would take them and then hit the country roads, holding conversation between watching over their shoulders for cars. Down the hill into Douglas, Mark cranked the speed up to 32.7 MPH as he entered the 30 MPH zone. Not bad on the slow bike. Turning North out of Douglas they enjoyed a quiet road and pleasant evening weather, stopping at one point to photograph a family of wild turkeys that had just crossed the road, discussing the beautiful colors in the fields, and noting the similarity of the rolling hills to the countryside of Ireland.

As they pulled into the parking lot of a building next to the hash which Mark assumed was a business of some sort, they were pleasantly surprised to see the sign read "New Haven Township Hall". Even less chance that someone would question what they were doing. C-Dog ditched his bike and started looking around while Mark, obsessed with getting a perfect Tron achievement, walked right into the weeds and pushed his bike up a short, steep hill. Right as Mark reached the top, C-Dog shouted, "This isn't a field, it's a quarry!" C-Dog climbed down in to the long pit dug in the earth as Mark worked to navigate to the hash point until, having found it, he snapped a few photos of the area and hung around to show C-Dog the point. Destination reached, Mark pushed his bike up one more steep hill to get a good view of the quarry, shoot more pictures, and then head down another steep hill on a Tron-like course for the road. Just before leaving the hilltop, Mark remembered that he brought a pen for leaving a marker, picked a particularly flat stone, and left a message for the next people to explore the quarry.

They had a pleasant ride home, continuing just a little further on the county road before hitting another bike trail that would take them back to town. C-Dog, having come straight from work, didn't have a water bottle, so they stopped in Douglas where he primed the old manual-pump fountain for a few minutes before enjoying a refreshing drink. Back toward town they continued on the trail, uneventfully, as dusk set in.

Tron Achievement Notes

Mark's path was a "perfect" Tron-style expedition, leaving his bike not once (which would necessitate a return to the same point), nor doing any exploring at the hash point that would result in a collision. Exploring the quarry would have been hard with a bike in tow.

Mark would like to note that traveling Tron-style really messes with your head. He spent the remainder of his evening trying to navigate the house without running into his path.