2013-04-14 42 -90

Location

Along NW Arterial near John F. Kennedy Road, Dubuque, Iowa.

Participants

The attractive and gracious wife and daughter of Swensonj (talk).

Plans

After waiting for months for a really accessible hash to show up, I (SwensonJ) find one on a day when I have to go to Illinois for a pinewood derby race.

Luckily, family members have to be at an event in Dubuque at the same time. I believe I've prevailed on them to visit the hash for me....

Expedition

SwensonJ

My son and I, and our friends, had an excellent trip to the pinewood derby. We got home well before my wife and daughter, and had to wait anxiously to see if the gymnastics and the geohash had gone well -- my wife didn't take her cell phone along.

Eventually they came home, healthy and happy, to report a successful hash.

SwensonJ's wife

The gymnastics went well (daughter bagged a second place trophy), and as quickly as could be expected with 65 contestants under the age of 9. We headed straight for the hash point, which was on the side of a major highway through Dubuque, IA. We decided that we didn't want to park on the side of the highway, so went in search of a better place to park. We could see a subdivision there, but it was new enough to not be on the GPS. Luckily, it was easy to find, and we soon chose a quiet cul-de-sac to park in. I knew that there was a fence all the way along the highway, and so was worried that we'd end up having to park on the road after all, but we found a nice place to go under the fence by a creek. It was pretty muddy, but there were handy branches and roots to step on, and we had grubby shoes on just in case (although I was still in my dress clothes-- we'll plan better next time!). It was a fairly easy walk once we got out of the rosebushes by the creek. Someone had obviously cut down all the brush fairly recently, so we only had to watch out for the occasional stump or marshy patch. As we got close the the hash I thought we'd have to go back under the fence, but luckily remembered to double check. The hash was a little way up the hill to the highway. We had to do only a little dance to get the proof picture, then took a few goofy grin pictures and headed back. Going back under the fence was a little more tricky than the first time, since there weren't any handy branches on the other side, but we only got a little muddy. We headed to Culvers for a celebratory custard, and then started home. On the way we passed a flock of pelicans in a backwater pond on the Mississippi and stopped to take about a million photos. Daughter was very impressed by the way the pelicans all dipped at the same time as they swam around. Actually, I was too, as I had read about it, but had never actually seen it. We got home about 30 minutes later (seeing a bald eagle and 6 turkeys on the way) to find our guys anxiously awaiting us.