2012-07-06 47 -122
| Fri 6 Jul 2012 in 47,-122: 47.6551710, -122.6795101 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Location
The flatscreen-TV section of a Best Buy in Silverdale
Participants
Plans
Thomcat's post on the Seattle talk page alerted me to this interesting location in the morning, and I thought why not. No particular plans on this beautiful summer Friday evening, and none materialized later in the day, so a bike/ferry/retail geohash it was. I also had an ancient Best Buy gift card that I needed to spend, so that worked out.
The second-to-last ferry from Bremerton back to Seattle was at 9:05pm, and the departure after that was something like midnight, so I aimed hard for the former. I figured the ten miles from Bremerton to Silverdale, finding the hash, and then the ten miles back might take two hours or more. There was a boat leaving at 5:35pm and arriving in Bremerton at around 6:35, which would hopefully be enough time.
Expedition
I left work a bit early at 4:50 or so and headed downtown by bike, hoping I'd have enough time to grab some takeout to eat on the ferry. I managed to accidentally find one of my favorite teriyakis on an intersection where I wasn't expecting it, which was great, but I failed to prevent them from putting flimsy plastic cups of sauce in the bag, which during the ride to the dock proceeded to spill all over the inside of my backpack, something I should have foreseen. I ate my yakisoba with soy-sauce stained chopsticks held in soy-sauce sticky hands while gazing at Mount Rainier down the Sound. Luckily, the electronics were in a different part of my pack, but still this was the low point of the trip.
Upon arrival in Bremerton I navigated my way toward the Silverdale Best Buy based on directions I'd memorized earlier. The road was beautiful, following the east shore of Dyes Inlet facing the Olympics, but at one point north of Tracyton I worried I'd made a wrong turn. I was having trouble remembering what the map looked like. All turned out well though, and I arrived around 7:15, plenty of time.
Figuring that the gps wouldn't work inside, I took advantage of this Best Buy's orientation along cardinal directions to pace off the distances to the hash. I picked a convenient entranceway as a standard meridian, stood on the sidewalk outside it, and walked east along the storefront counting steps until my gps longitude matched what I had scrawled on a piece of paper from Peeron. 24 paces east it was. I then continued east until I was past the end of the store, turned north through the parking lot, and counted paces until the latitudes matched. 40 paces north. Some employees were eating dinner on break at a nearby picnic table and looked at me funny. I was very proud.
I then turned off and put away the gps, returned to my origin on the sidewalk, walked 40 paces directly into the Best Buy past the information counter person, turned right and walked 24 more steps through an aisle to... the TVs! This was what the internet had directed me to today, apparently. They were all in the four figures of $ which is not exactly my price range, but they did look cool. After documenting my success, I walked over to the CD section and spent the gift card on a 1997 Foo Fighters album and a new Springsteen.
The ride back was much less nerve-racking, since I knew I had plenty of time and wasn't going the wrong way. After that it was just ferry, ride part 2 and home before 11pm.
Photos
At the hashpoint
Sky through tree trunks on a ridge
The setting
