2011-08-22 45 -93

Mon 22 Aug 2011 in 45,-93: 45.0079141, -93.0222607 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

The edge of someone's house.

Participants

RocketMac - On my way from Milwaukee to Minneapolis for work

Plans

Normally when I drive for work, I plan out a few Geocaches along the way to break up the driving and snag a few finds. This time, I realized that I would be passing through multiple graticules and five of them had hashpoints I could reach with only a slight detour.

In the full spirit of adventure, I let The Algorithm be the wind in my sails and the GPS satellites my stars. I just let them guide me from one hashpoint to another taking routes I never would have tried before and seeing all new sights.

Expedition

On my way to number five I realized I was going to need gas. I was driving along a small two lane highway and on my right was lots of rolling hills, tree-lines and the occasional farm/factory. Then, suddenly, on my left was a gas station. I quickly pulled over to the left (and odd feeling to pull over across "traffic") and pulled up to a pump. There were only two pumps here though they were somewhat modern. They each only had a single "regular" gas option and no credit card machines. When I started the gas pump, I could hear it actually "chug-chug"ing the gas into my car. At times it would stop and then burst forward again.

Once that finished I stopped inside for soda. A gentleman was coming out with a pizza so I went to investigate. There was a small pizzeria that had a set-up in the gas station. The smells made me very hungry, so I bought a couple slices and started back on the road.

Number five was easy. I pulled into down, down a couple streets and suddenly there I was. It looked further from the road on the map, but I was standing at the edge of the road within feet of the edge of the house and the hashpoint. The area had signs proclaiming its "Neighborhood Watch" and I could tell I was being watched at times. But I took some pictures, made a few casual strolls and made the hashpoint and was back on the road.

Well... that was boring. After the last couple, this was trivial. I wanted to do something more, so I checked for nearby geocaches to find. There were two within a quarter mile, but they too seemed dull. About half a mile down the road was a simple "park and grab" in a parking lot that was more my speed. Turns out that, too, was easy, but it was something.

Now it was getting dark and I still had a twenty minute drive ahead of me to get to my hotel. Off we go. A nice simple ending to a fun adventure.

Tracklog

My log for the whole day is available in GPX and KMZ formats

Photos

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  Me at the hashpoint

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  The house in question

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  GPS reading

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  Scenery along the way

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  The gas station on the side of the road

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  More fantastic vistas

Achievements

RocketMac earned the Land geohash achievement by reaching the (45, -93) geohash on 2011-08-22.