2020-08-31 31 34

Mon 31 Aug 2020 in 31,34: 31.9941215, 34.7954830 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

This Geohash is located in the Sand Dunes Park in Holon.

Participants

• Yerushalmi, his wife, #2-5

Expedition

With #1 deciding to stay home, so the rest of us went geohashing. This time it was on some sand dunes outside Holon, perfectly accessible. There's even a road leading to the general area of the point!

Unfortunately, the road isn't *fully* paved. There were a few bits where there's no paving at all, about 10 meters of sand before the paving resumes. And there was no warning that this was the case, and our car isn't a 4x4...

We sank right in. And got stuck. Forward, reverse, nothing.

Other cars came by, and went off the road to go around us perfectly happily. But we couldn't move.

Eventually, however, an expert arrived: what you gotta do is take the floor mats out of the car, and put them under the tires. The tires can get traction on the floor mats, and you just keep removing and replacing them, until you're back on the road. Brilliant!

By that time, of course, the sun was setting, so we abandoned our plans for the point.

Aftermath

There was one complication that only arose far later. A few months later, we found our car was infested - massively infested - with tiny beetles. We took it to be cleaned but the infestation returned. Finally (since there was a lockdown anyway), I took an N95 mask, held my breath, and sprayed an entire can of bugspray into the car. It killed them all. We took the car to be cleaned again.

The following year, the infestation returned. So I did it again.

The following year I kept a close eye out for the first hint of another bug, but it looks like I killed them all. The second round must have been the eggs laid by the first round, and I got the second round before they too could lay eggs.

I can't be *certain*, but I'm fairly sure it was a consequence of getting stuck in the desert and sticking our floor mats in the sand for hours.