2012-03-31 45 -122

Location

In a gritty industrial area in North Portland.

Participants

Plans

Jim had noticed an accessible looking hashpoint on Friday, but didn't realize how far south it really was until Saturday morning.

Expedition

M5K

The hashpoint was about a mile off the interstate in an industrial area. I hit it on my way north up the I-5, and left a postcard in case any of the other Portlandites hit the hashpoint.

I stopped in Longview to write up the expedition, but found that the wiki had been hacked. I spent about a half hour trying to figure out the nature of the attack, but gave up eventually -- I don't have the skillz to deal with something like that.

I stopped again in Olympia to see if anybody had been able to repair the wiki. This time I got it; it's April Fools Day already on the other side of the IDL, and the site has been turned upside down as a practical joke.

Now I'm in Bellevue, and have been granted a reprieve: "˙uıʞs ʇuǝɹǝɟɟıp ɐ ʞɔıd puɐ 'ǝɔuɐɹɐǝddɐ <- sǝɔuǝɹǝɟǝɹd ʎɯ 'ıʞıʍ ǝɥʇ buıʇıpǝ ʇnoɥʇıʍ ǝʌıן ʇ,uɐɔ ʎןןɐǝɹ noʎ ɟı." I've spent about $15 (in wi-fi cafes) and three extra hours of the day just trying to write up this expedition. As if geohashing didn't have enough barriers to entry, know what I'm sayin'? For me, [2012-03-31 45 -122] has really turned out to be the exact opposite of "fun." I hope somebody else got to it and had a better time.

Jim

Jim set off for the hashpoint, but got distracted by errands on the way. Before he left, he looked for, but didn't find any email responses to his email messages to the portland-geohashers mailing list, which, luckily, hadn't been turned upside down.

However, the inverted wiki proved enough of a barrier to keep him from creating a placeholder page before he set out.

Finally he made it to the hashpoint, and noticed the GPS as he passed it. The distance dropped low enough that he thought a Speed racer was in order.

I walked back from the impounded car location where he stopped and took some photos, then headed back towards the hashpoint. I had noticed a 40 MPH speed limit looking back towards the hashpoint, but was started to discover as I approached that it was really in a 45 MPH zone, so I quickly sped up the missing 5 MPH to zip through the hashpoint at the limit.

I'm sorry to report that I didn't see the postcard, however.