2009-04-01 39 -88

Wed 1 Apr 2009 in Decatur, Illinois: 39.6708254, -88.2245499 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

A straightforward cornfield geohash with only the slightest of twists in the approach to the hash point. Nathan found himself in the graticule just south of his home graticule of (40, -88). The day's coordinates fell in the middle of a harvested corn field off a paved county road. This location was south of Filson, IL, and southeast of Arcola, IL.

Meetup

Deciding on going geohashing on April Fools Day, hoping his friends would later believe him, Nathan ventured south of his home graticule of (40, -88), and decided to reach the hash point in the (39, -88) graticule, instead.

The drive was pretty straightforward. Nathan headed south on Interstate-57, turned off at Arcola and headed west down a state highway, then a few turns down some county roads and he was arriving as close to the point on car as he could.

As he approached the closest point on the road to the point, Nathan crossed a bridge spanning a fairly nice size ditch (see photos). Before beginning his walk to the point, Nathan grabbed his camera and made out his marker flag for the day's hash point.

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  Front of the marker flag

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  Back of the marker flag

After getting out of his car and beginning to head north toward the hash point, he noticed that the ditch he had just crossed started to cut across his straight-line path to the hash point.

Now the question was, would the point lie on the near side or the far side of the ditch? Well, after consulting his GPS, Nathan decided it was probably going to lie on the far side of the ditch. So, Nathan turned back and went back to the road, backtracked back over the bridge, and began approaching the point from the southwest (instead of directly from due south). This turned out to be a smart move as the point did, in fact, lie well on the far side of the ditch.

Nathan arrived at the coordinates shortly after 4:00, but found no one in sight. Figuring he was the only geohasher at these coordinates for the day (which isn't too much of a stretch considering it was a Wednesday afternoon), Nathan took a few photos, planted a marker flag, and began his trip back. For some reason, the flies were really bad near the hash point (you can see them in the background of one of the photos).

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  Arriving at the location at 4:13 p.m.

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  GPS screen shot indicating arrival

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  GPS screen shot indicating exact coordinates

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  Nathan at the hash point

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  Planted marker flag at hash point

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  Homestead to the southwest

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  Homestead to the north

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  View to the southeast

Nathan followed the ditch back to the road and took several shots along the way:

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  My car to the south

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  Curvy ditch with my car in the background

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  The wide, curvy ditch

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  The bridge spanning the curvy ditch

After arriving back at the road, Nathan took a few more photos before heading back home for the day.

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  A shot from the bridge to the car showing how far I had to backtrack

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  Celebratory pose

Achievements

Nathan earned the Land geohash achievement by reaching the (39, -88) geohash on 2009-04-01.