2009-02-07 42 -90

Sat 7 Feb 2009 in Dubuque: 42.9706489, -90.2761965 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Participants

starbird
Bill Minser and the Patient Toddler

Expedition

Part one of a multihash.

Edmund, WI is a very small town. The point was in a cornfield 400m north of Route 18, and just 200m north of the old Chicago & Northwestern rail corridor. It's now a ski trail at this time of year.

We parked on a side road and entered the field from the west. The weather was unseasonably warm (5 °C), and our noses immediately told us that the field had been fertilized shortly before the ground froze last fall. We set off, trying to walk more on the remaining patches of snow and less on the fertilizer. Happily, the snow was a bit deeper in the middle of the field. The point was near a treeline and fence separating this field from the next one. We were lucky to find the hashpoint on the near side.

After the requisite photography, we decided to leave the field by going south to the ski trail instead of retracing our steps west through the manure. There were two problems with this. First, there was a bank to climb between the field and the rail corridor, with deep snow. We found ourselves sinking in up to our waists at each step. Bill eventually figured out that the way to deal with this was to crawl on all fours. However, this made the toddler (who was strapped to his back) somewhat unhappy. The second difficulty was that the bank was covered with thistles. Once we got through, we entertained ourselves while walking back to the car by picking thistles off our clothing.

We stopped at Culver's in Dodgeville for some much needed sustenance before continuing on to part two.

Bill Minser, starbird and the Patient Toddler earned the Graticule Unlocked Achievement by being the first to reach any hashpoint in the (42, -90) graticule, here, on 2009-02-07.

Photos

To follow.