2023-01-08 38 -89

Location

A cemetery on the outskirts of Centralia.

Participants

Tarasaurus

Plans

Going to take the train down from Chicago for this one!

Expedition

First train of the day with Metra

Chicago Union Station great hall

Second train with Amtrak

When I picked up Geohashing again at the start of the year, I added a bunch of locations in Geohash Droid at train stations all over the state of Illinois with the idea that one day a hash point would appear near a station on a day I was not working. Little did I know that one day would be less than a week later! The notification came up on my phone on Friday that this point was less than 2 miles from the Amtrak station in Centralia. Two trains run to Centralia each day, one southbound in the morning and one northbound in the evening. That meant I could take a day trip out to the hash and be home that same night! I quickly spoke to my partner about it, got their blessing and booked my tickets.

The plan was to head to my local train station and take a Metra commuter train to Chicago Union Station, then Amtrak all the way out to Centralia, arriving around noon. Then I'd walk to the hash point which was located in a cemetery, before returning to town for food and shopping. Then reverse all that for the journey home. All told it would be 279 miles (449km) on trains each way. Unfortunately the local buses don't run on weekends, so I had to drive to the train station in the morning.

The day started out very early. The only Metra train that would get me to Chicago in time for my Amtrak train (called the Saluki) left at 6:20am, so I left home around 5:50am. I arrived in plenty of time to figure out how to pay for parking for the day, and boarded. Metra uses interesting rail cars called Gallery cars which have two floors and an open gallery down the middle of the top floor. This lets the conductor check tickets for all the passengers from the bottom floor. Convenient!

We pulled in to Union Station with enough time for me to walk around and see the famous Grand Hall, which still had their Christmas tree up. It's a very beautiful part of the station and I love seeing it whenever I can. Unfortunately, the rest of Union Station is underground below buildings and streets, so it's a confusing maze of hallways and rooms. I've been here many times and still find it challenging to figure out where I need to go. Eventually, I found the Amtrak gate to board from and headed to the train. The Saluki route uses new Charger locomotives and Amtrak's famous Superliner passenger cars, which are huge and have tons of room for all the passengers. They're meant for super long distance routes so the seats can recline back almost horizontally so passengers can sleep. Having just woken up myself, I spent the 4 hour journey mostly playing Cookie Clicker on my laptop and listening to podcasts and music.

Along the way we passed through a band of fairly heavy snow, so I had my hopes up that perhaps enough snow would be on the ground for a Frozen Geohash achievement. However the temperature in Centralia was slightly above freezing so it all melted right away. At least my feet would stay dry then!

Centralia downtown is typical of rural cities in the US

Sylvie and I at the point!

After arriving about 30 minutes behind schedule, I immediately set off walking through town to the hash point. Centralia is unfortunately pretty typical of the kind of small rural city decline common across much of the US. It looks pretty in the heart of town, but most of the buildings and homes are falling apart pretty badly outside of there. It made me a little anxious actually, because people in rural areas tend to be very protective of their property and don't trust strangers easily. I was worried someone would stop me to ask why I was walking out into farmland, but fortunately that did not happen.

Approaching the Cavalry Cemetery where the point lay, I was passed by a white SUV that turned and entered the cemetery just before me. They then stopped just past the entrance and very slowly moved further down the gravel road. I was super nervous they were going to consider me suspicious, especially when they stopped just about 100 meters from the entrance on a little roundabout around a monument. I really had a strong feeling they were watching me closely. I decided that I should get to the hash point and back out as quickly as possible.

The point lay in a grassy field beside the main part of the cemetery. It's not clear whether this is part of the cemetery or not. On Google maps it's marked separately, but the cemetery fence encloses this grassy field, so I'm considering it a part of the cemetery set aside for future use. I had no problem locating the point right away, and quickly pulled out Sylvie the hashscot for a quick photo, then packed her away and walked back out to the road. I have no idea if the SUV occupants were watching or suspicious of me but I wasn't going to stick around to find out.

Once I was back on the road to town it was time for lunch as it was already around 1:30 in the afternoon. I decided on Monical's Pizza, just a short distance to the north. They're a chain of restaurants mainly in central and southern Illinois and it had been many years since I'd had one of their pizzas. After eating I still had 3 more hours until my train home (called the Illini. Amtrak names all their routes).

Since it's unlikely I'll be visiting Centralia again any time soon I spent the time walking around town, taking in the sights, and looking for shops to check out. While I found some cool parks that had a carillon bell tower and a well preserved Illinois Central steam locomotive, almost all the local shops were closed because it was Sunday. The big corporate stores on the outskirts of town were open, but I had no desire to go there. I prefer to spend money at the local shops if possible.

After criss-crossing Centralia I was beginning to get cold so I returned to the train station and their heated waiting room to wait out the last hour and a half until my train home. The ride back to Chicago was mostly like the ride down except for getting stuck behind a freight train for 20 minutes right outside the city. We arrived at Union Station just before 10pm, where I discovered that they had begun dismantling the Christmas tree during the day. I find it fascinating that I got to see the decorations at the last possible time of the season.

I got on the last Metra train of the day back to my home station, which was cold and had a bunch of drunk people that had attended a football game earlier. We pulled in just before midnight where I found my parked car and drove the last bit home, very tired and very cold. All told, the expedition lasted 18 hours and 25 minutes, from 5:50am to 12:15am, by far the longest and furthest geohash expedition I've ever done.

Overall the one way distance I covered from home to the hash point was 285.5 miles (459km). Round trip (including walking around town) was 574.5 miles (925km). I'm not sure what the furthest distance is that someone has traveled specifically for a hash point, but this has got to be up there as one of the longest expeditions. Was it worth it? Absolutely! I had a great day out, saw a part of the country I never would have otherwise, got some exercise (17,500 steps!) and got 3 new achievements I've never had before. I can't think of anything more in the spirit of geohashing and adventure than that.