2025-03-01 39 -77

Location

A miraculously publicly-owned triangle of land right next to the water tower in Mt. Airy, Maryland.

Participants

User:Adam

Plans

I was sitting in the office around noon on Friday, staving off the boredom by traveling via map, when I spied Saturday's geohash. Excitement at its proximity quickly turned to a sigh of frustration, as at first glance, it appeared (like most of the hashes I've examined for the past few weekends) to be squarely on private property.

But hold on. It seems awfully close to the water tower to be private property. And the map seems to show it falling just outside the fenceline of the nearby houses. Could it be...? Dare I hope...?

About an hour later, having dived as far as tax records and the county surveyor's website, I had an answer: yes. It *was* on public lands - specifically, on an awkward parcel that had been held by the developers of the nearby houses but sold back to the city - presumably as it's nearly unusable commercially as the only access is the easement to the water tower.

At long last I'd found another acceptable target. Upon returning home I hurried to smear Permatex The Right Stuff on the various and sundry leaks forever sprouting up on my bike; as the noxious polymer goo dried overnight outside, I dreamt dreams of geohash success.

Expedition

Saturday morning rolled around, and though I woke up early enough, I nearly convinced myself to skip this one. The weather was certainly much, much warmer and drier than previous weekends... but the biting cold and driving rain had been replaced with the one thing I might possibly hate more: gusting winds. 25 mph base, and the ominous descriptor of "much higher gusts" throughout the day.

I did make it out of the house... and as soon as I left the protective windbreak of the city, I almost regretted it. The rolling plains of north-central Maryland are no less a region defined by winds as the pampas. When I am made Chief Climatologist of the DMV Region, these winds - uneven, surprising, calculated to drive you mad as they blow across your face and bike - will have a name just as recognized as the Santa Ana. Perhaps "Motherfuckers" or "Ultimate Motherfuckers" or "GAAAH! I'm leaned over 30 degrees just to keep the bike straight in these things. How is this not a Major Emergency Declaration".

Taking comfort in how lovely my freshly installed rear suspension was, I bravely cranked the throttle through the back roads towards Mt. Airy. A few hours later I rolled to a stop in downtown for a lox-finding mission, as well as to recreate the image taken on Main Street looking north towards the intersection with Park Road. I snapped a few, matching the way the image is framed by the telephone pole on the left and the phone wire on the top - though I didn't dare to step into the busy street to *properly* recreate the angle.

A mile or so north of the photo op, I again pulled off to make the hash itself. I fully expected to see at any moment the red-oval-on-black-background POSTED of shame as I approached the water tower, making this whole trip into a consolation prize. But luckily my research bore out. I found a path heading into the parcel just to the left of the water tower's fenceline; it headed right for the geohash while staying well clear of any private property. A few dozen yards down the path and I lined up the two houses to the southeast, judged the right alignment (about a third of the way down the southern house's back boundary), got well within close enough, and snapped a few pictures. Success!

Photos

GPS quality was not all that good, but the map was useful.
Approaching the water tower from the road.
Taking the path by the watertower (note lack of POSTED signs).
By the hash, well outside private property (see map).
We can declare this torn-up plant pot to be the tag. Or maybe the brush pile I walked all over.
A bonus recreation of the wikipedia page for Mt. Airy.