2009-12-05 42 -84

Sat 5 Dec 2009 in Lansing: 42.0580557, -84.9298404 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

About

The day's coordinates fell in a field in extreme northeastern Branch County, Michigan.

Expedition

excellentdude: It was Saturday and the weather was great for the time of year, so we decided to geohash. Also, the day's coordinates fell in the small part of Branch County that is in our graticule. We'd attempted coordinates in this area before in trying to move toward a Reverse Regional Geohash achievement, but had been thwarted. We thought we'd give it another shot today.

On the way to the location, my car hit a mini-milestone: 125,000 miles! Given my love for driving, this was almost as much fun for me as the hash itself was. Shortly thereafter, we made it to the area of the hash. There were a few small buildings nearby that were arranged in such a way as to make it difficult to decide where to ask for permission to access the field the hash was in. We drove down a barely existent driveway to a trailer. I was unclear if someone lived there or not. We knocked on the door, but there was no answer. We went to another nearby house, but with the same result. With the hash in the field clearly in view, we were about ready to hang our heads and return home with another Branch County failure.

As we were departing, though, we saw a truck turn down the rough driveway we'd turned into when we first arrived. They drove far past the trailer, through a break in the trees at the back of the field, and into another field. We decided to walk back and see if they owned the land. When we approached the truck, we encountered two young men. They said little, but didn't appear to consider us geohashing there something they were very interested in letting happen. Again, as we were about to leave with the coordinates unreached, their mother walked up. After a short conversation, and a little confusion about the sport, she was happy to let us access the hash point and take our pictures. She expressed to us that normally they would have been more open to the idea; however, lately county property tax officials had been known to be traveling through the area and taking pictures of people's property in order to assess its value. As one might expect, this practice is none too liked by the landowners, including the people to whom we were speaking. After hearing what we had to say, she was satisfied enough that that was not our purpose to let us get to the hash. Once we did, we took the normal pictures. We also took a picture of my thermometer to document our first frozen geohash of the season.

Achievements

excellentdude earned the Land geohash achievement by reaching the (42, -84) geohash on 2009-12-05.

excellentdude earned the Frozen Geohash Achievement by reaching the (42, -84) geohash on 2009-12-05 while the temperature was 0°C.

excellentdude earned the xkcd Nullaturion achievement by attending 3 Saturday meetups.

excellentdude earned the Ambassador achievement by obtaining permission to access the (42, -84) geohash on 2009-12-05.

Photos

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  My car hit a milestone on the way

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  We made it!

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  Obligatory goofy grins

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  My girlfriend standing on the hash

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  Our first frozen hash of the season