2023-08-20 41 -87

Location

In/near the parking lot for a park in Bensenville.

Participants

Haberdasher (talk)
Kuyper, KerrMcF's friend

Plans

Haberdasher

Likely visiting this hashpoint sometime Sunday afternoon.

KerrMcF

Kuyper will probably arrive at the geohash at around 3pm.

Expedition

Expedition Haberdasher

It wasn't the ideal day for a hashpoint run... not with a heat advisory active and the temperature in the 90s. But it was a lazy Sunday, and the hashpoint was a reasonable distance from home, and in a nice little park no less, so why not? And the idea of a meetup (albeit a meetup with a puppet rather than a regular geohasher...) certainly sweetened the deal.

The drive to the hashpoint was uneventful, and I arrived a few minutes prior to the agreed meeting time of 3 PM. I checked out the park for a bit--a small park, but a nice one just the same--before starting to do the hashpoint dance with the app. Turns out the hashpoint was almost on top of a sign promoting some programs held by the park district, which made finding it a breeze.

Then I sat in my car for a few minutes, enjoying the air conditioning... and saw another car pull into the previously-empty parking lot, park in a spot in the shade, and sit there. Was this the geohasher sent here by Kerr? They weren't heading for the hashpoint, but they were looking at their phone, which could mean they were checking out the app or trying to navigate despite technical difficulties...

After a couple minutes, I worked up the courage to go to the other car and ask if they were geohashing... which they were not. The car's inhabitant explained that she had just gotten out from the church around the corner and was spending a few minutes relaxing in the park. I agreed that it was a nice place to relax, mentioned that I was checking if she was the friend I was meeting up with, and headed back to my car.

After a couple more minutes, I looked on Discord and saw that Kerr's friend/puppet was on their way, but running late. It sounded like they weren't all that close yet, so I figured I might as well go get ice cream nearby instead. In hindsight, it sounds like they were closer than I thought, and we were only a minute or two away from a successful (puppet) meetup. Drat. At least the ice cream was good.

Expedition Kuyper/KerrMcF

KerrMcF was unable to attend to the geohash in his graticule due to it being in a large body of water and was unable to attend to this one as he lives in Scotland. However, his friend Kuyper was close to this one and was willing to travel to it for him.

Kuyper informed me (KerrMcF) at 2:45pm (his time) that they were heading to the geohash, and 45 minutes later I received a message saying they were there! I let them know that Haberdasher should be there too, but as it turns out, they had only just left the area.

Kuyper also complained about the heat (92°F) and I was definitely glad it was them instead of me, but they managed to successfully reach the geohash and send me photos of the surrounding area. They seemed to enjoy what was technically their first geohashing expedition and I am very grateful for their help!