2010-02-22 51 11

Location

100 m off the B88 in a field south of Camburg, next to the village of Wichmar.

Participants

Plans

Reinhard will probably cycle there after work from Jena-Löbstedt, starting around 6 pm. One direction is 12.1 km.

Expedition

Reinhard

At 18:20 Reinhard started his bike trip from work. Some single raindrops were coming off the clouds just beforehand, but they only intended to scare Reinhard and stopped doing so quickly, when they saw that Reinhard was going anyway. There was a nice wind blowing in northeast direction along the river Saale and thereby pushing Reinhard to the hashpoint. When he got close to it and got off the bike, Reinhard recognized that getting closer would mean a very muddy walk over the field. Nevertheless, he went the 90 m into the field (again they felt much longer than what you would expect them to feel like regarding the satellite view) and got wet feet immediately. After finding the exact position and taking the usual photos, he went back to his bike at the road and prepared to ride back. But then a small light appeared on the road in the dark, from where he was coming ...

Juja

After thinking quite some while about going to that hash, I finally decided in the afternoon to try it after work, as the weather did not look so bad after all. Still, I had to go home to fetch biking clothes (the satellite picture let me guess - correctly - that it would be a very muddy hash again) and then started as it already got dark. The bike ways could probably not be used because of ice, so I took the road right away. While I was still wondering where exactly the point might be, I spotted a small light some hundred meters in front of me, on the side of the road... that was Reinhard! I wandered into the field and tried to take photos - again, my camera hated me and failed to focus anything, but luckily, there was a second geohasher documenting everything for me.

Juja and Reinhard

While Juja was stepping into the muddy field, Reinhard was waiting for her at the road and their bikes, since his shoes were already dirty enough. After Juja had come back, they rode back to Jena together. In Porstendorf a car was passing them and the guy on the passenger's side called something containing the word "Radfahrer" (cyclists). Knee-jerkly Reinhard was calling back a friendly, but sarcastical "Hallo!", like he always does, when people in overtaking cars are throwing smart phrases at him to teach him how to cycle correctly. A second later, Reinhard recognized, that this time it was a police car overtaking them. Juja understood the whole sentence the policeman called: "Rotlichter gelten auch für Radfahrer!" - "Red lights do also apply for cyclists!" ... Well ... yes ... ten seconds before, Juja and Reinhard traversed a red light. But it was a well-known traffic light without a crossing and only intended to slow drivers down in the urban area AND it is always red unless cars are approaching, which are annoyingly detected by induction loops that of course do not notice bikes. So they only could have waited at the traffic light for cars to approach or they could have broken the law without disturbing anyone. However, the police car didn't stop and probably concentrated on more evil crimes.

Juja and Reinhard earned the Police Geohash Achievement

by being taught by a policeman not to traverse red lights during geohashing expeditions while attempting the (51, 11) geohash on 2010-02-22.

Best thing is, Reinhard volunteered to write the expedition page, because I used the rest of the evening to go swimming - and instead of that being relaxing, the trainer let us do the most exhausting exercises he could think of (thanks a lot, you know who you are). When I came home at 10:30 pm, I still had to wash my muddy shoes - when the lumps of mud fell of, I saw some tiny rips between leather and sole. Hooray. At least, that explains my wet feet. Then, finally, could drop to my bed...