2010-08-13 35 -88

Fri 13 Aug 2010 in Jackson: 35.5762971, -88.8339998 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

About 7 miles south of Jackson, TN, at

35.576297°, -88.834°

Participants

Josh

Plans

Stop by the hash point en route from Nashville to Memphis.

Expedition

Seeing the lack of hashing going on in my native Tennessee, I decided that I would check out where the hashpoints for this weekend were while I visited my parents in Memphis. I had decided that if they weren't far off the interstate, I'd check them out during my travels. How fortunate I was that the hash point was only a few miles south of Jackson. I had checked google maps, and figured that the area looked like some kind of dirt hills or mounds, which I thought strange, but didn't linger too long on it.

After getting off work, I packed up my things for the weekend and left Nashville at a few minutes shy of 6 p.m. A few miles out, I realized I had forgotten to pack a flashlight and that I was due to hit Jackson at about 8 p.m. Thus, my goals were changed from "reach the hash" to "reach the hash by dark" as I did not wish to fumble around goodness knows where in the pitch black. As I was heading west, I could clearly see the sun closing in on the horizon throughout the trip. About 15-20 miles away from the hashpoint, the sun looked quite lovely as it gleamed red and about hit the horizon, but this only added to my urgency to reach the hash point. I hit the exit and drove an extra 8 miles down to Bemis, TN (not much going on there) and made my way to where I had reckoned the hash to be. To my surprise, I realized that google maps must have scanned the area outside the growing season, because as I pulled into the field, I surveyed nothing but cotton plants. There did not seem to be an apparent pattern to the field (hence my assumption of mounds of earth).

By this point, it was dusk and light was fading fast. As there were no visible paths through the cotton plants, and not wishing to venture off into the dark, I sadly did not reach the hash point itself. The field itself had a haunting feeling about it, in a good way. I attribute this to the haze setting over the landscape (which made pictures quite incapable of capturing the true look of the place) and the beautiful crescent moon hanging overhead.

It was now nighttime, and I decided I best be moving on towards Memphis (in fact, my mom had called as soon as I stepped out of the car at the hash point). On my way out of Bemis, I encountered the strange occurrence of driving behind a truck that was driving backwards down the road...

I at least got a lovely view of a golden crescent moon setting on the horizon as I continued on my way.

Photos

I'll add my pictures (as much as you can make out through the haze) once I return to Nashville on Sunday.