2009-09-25 42 -84

Fri 25 Sep 2009 in Lansing: 42.0228332, -84.9926008 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

About

The day's coordinates were located on a farm in Branch County in the far southwestern corner of the graticule.

Expedition

excellentdude: As it turned out, reaching coordinates was never meant to be for me on this day. I checked the coordinates around lunch time. Whenever they fall in the southwest corners of the graticules like they did today, I always check the Port Austin, Michigan, graticule to see if the coordinates made a rare landfall. They did! Being done with work on a Friday at 4:30, I thought I might have just enough daylight to make it up there. I emailed my girlfriend to gauge her interest, and also asked about a backup hash plan in our home graticule that would help me toward the reverse regional geohashing achievement. Unfortunately, she had unexpectedly been called into work until 7pm. That definitely killed the Port Austin plan; however, if I picked her up from work, I still figured we'd have just enough light to make it to the coordinates in our graticule.

Shortly before she got off work, I arrived in the parking lot outside. In the short time I was there, someone parked next to me and opened their door very hard into my car, scratching it quite a bit. As soon as that happened, my girlfriend showed up, but I had to waste a few minutes exchanging insurance information. After a ten-minute delay, we were finally off. With the days getting shorter and the coordinates in the opposite end of the graticule, the race was on. As we went, it gradually got darker and darker. By the time we finally got to the house closest to the coordinates, only the last wisps of twilight were left with not an insignificant amount of field still to walk through. With a flashless camera phone, this wasn't looking good. On top of that, there were no cars to be seen at the house. When we knocked, it was confirmed that no one was home. We also found a "for sale" sign in some rather tall grass in front of the house. So, either no one was home or no one lived there. Not wanting to creepily trespass on someone's farm in the dark, we decided to head back home. Despite the lack of geohashing success, we had fun, good conversation, and a nice little meal at Burger King on the way home.

Achievements

excellentdude earned the No trespassing consolation prize by almost reaching the (42, -84) geohash on 2009-09-25.

Photos

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  The driveway of the house was as close as we got