2018-09-03 41 -80

Location

South of Kingsville, OH, just off Baldwin Rd

Participants

Pedalpusher
Two Friends

Expedition

What a great start to the week! We had an epic road trip planned starting today, going from Buffalo, NY to Mt. Rushmore (the goal of the trip) and ending in Denver, CO, where we flew home on Saturday, the 8th.

This hash was in a perfect spot for a Drag Along, landing a mere 6 minutes away from our planned route! Taking the first driving shift, I informed my friends that I would like to take a quick detour once we entered Ohio. Quickly explaining the game, they agreed to the weird but quick detour. Finding our exit from the I-90, we easily found the Hash-road. I handed my phone over so I could drive while the Hash-app was opened but we weren't getting a signal! Knowing the hash was just off the road, worst case, I was going to drive to the end of the road and claim a No Batteries since we would have been within the uncertainty circle anyway on the road. On the way back, I tried closing and reopening the app and suddenly I had enough of a signal to get a location and we were able to hop out and get right to the spot anyway. WOO! Another tally to the Graticule Hopper!

Getting our pictures, we hopped back in the car and continued on our way to Chicago for our first overnight. On the way, we stopped at the three corners of Michigan, Ohio and Indiana for a quick photo shoot. It's just a simple metal marker in the middle of a country road with the letter 'M' stamped into it. After that, we made another stop at the Krider World's Fair Gardens in Middlebury, IN for the Giant Mushroom (designed for the 1933/34 Chicago World Fair). Unfortunately, halfway through the gardens, we got caught in some really heavy rain and took shelter in one of the pavilions until it eased up and then made a break for the car.

We had a blast in Chicago, taking a city walking tour, explored a park, stuck our feet in Lake Michigan, and caught a White Sox (Baseball) game the next day. On our way to a campsite in Iowa, we hit a park a bit outside Chicago for a sculpture (The Awakening Muse) in Schaumburg, IL. With a stop in Galena, IL, we toured the Ulysses S. Grant house (18th President) and had a quick lunch. The next day, we pretty much drove right through to the Badlands National Park in South Dakota because we wanted to catch the sunset before we set up camp. There is a Tourist Trap pretty close called Wall Drug where we stopped for dinner first. They definitely made the drive easier as the first billboard we saw for them was 352 Miles away, before we even crossed into SD, and then billboards every couple miles. We took too long wandering around the Wall Drug mall so we couldn't hike in like we planned, but we climbed up a hill by the campsite to catch the sunset in the Badlands. Getting up early, we hiked in on a short trail and saw the sunrise before we drove to Mt. Rushmore, and finally to Denver!

Unfortunately, I didn't find any other viable hashes to stop for as they either looked inaccessible or were just too far off our planned route. This was definitely one of the best adventures I've been on. Can't wait for next year where we tentatively decided on a trip to New Orleans.