Talk:Crestview, Florida

10/12/08 - Today's location was on the Eglin range, just east of Niceville, about half a mile north of Range Road and a thousand feet west of the nearest sand road. Liberian made the trek, arriving successfully right at 4:00. It was cloudy and the ground, while quite open for forest around here, was sloping in various directions towards a winding creek nearby. Liberian got a tremendous opportunity to see just how easy it is to get turned around in the woods without a well-defined trail. He also learned first-hand what a great invention the GPS is. On the way home he searched for a couple of geocaches but came up empty.

10/4/08 - Today's location was on land, eminently reachable, and quite near town. Natural Beauty was not able to make it, but Liberian and Power Tool made the trip and found the place. They were actually a little early, and while it was not clear whether the location itself was on private property, it was right next to somebody's yard and they decided not to park right there. They parked a short distance off and walked in. After a couple of photographs in an effort to document the event, Liberian broke out a bottle of sparkling grape juice (they had to drive afterwards, after all) and the two of them toasted a successful geo-hash. They found a couple of geocaches on the way home.

9/1/08 - While both weekend locations were out on the water, Monday's location was not! And Monday was a holiday. Not letting minor distractions like Hurricane Gustav (there was still wind, but there was no rain while they were out there) get in the way, Power Tool and Liberian headed east for the meet-up point. They were hoping for a visitor from another graticule, but he didn't show up ... at least they didn't see him. They went down Highway 331 to the side road, went along the side road to an appropriate track, and there on the track was a sign: "WARNING: Persons apprehended on this property are subject to confiscation of vehicles, firearms, personal property, arrest, and a charge of criminal trespassing." They looked at each other and one of them said, "He sounds like he means it." They turned around and sought another way to the meet-up point. A good fraction of a mile back along the road was another way that looked promising and had no "No Trespassing" signs. In they went, to find themselves in a trackless forest following a game trail. They slogged faithfully along, until around 4:15 PM they came to a stream blocking their path. One turned to the other and said, "You realize that after we finish getting in, we will have to get out." They decided to declare failure and turn around. Sunt lacrimae rero.

8/29/08 - After a series of locations out on the water, we had another missed opportunity as today's meet-up location was on Highway 285 just below Mossy Head. Unfortunately nobody found out about it (work! it is the scourge of the drinking class) until that evening. And both weekend locations are out on the water again. <Sigh>

2008-08-10 30 -86 8/10/08 - Today's meetup location was in the Blackwater State Forest, on a back road north of Holt. The Not-So-Wild Bunch, made up of Natural Beauty, Power Tool, Myro Mazzi, and Liberian drove up to the Bone Creek Recreation Area and parked. Unfortunately Liberian had forgotten the detailed maps and so the NSWB took off in a more-or-less straight line towards the meetup location. After a quarter of a mile of winding in and out of forest, we made it to the appropriate point and took some pictures. (When Liberian gets his act together, he will get pictures of everybody present, along with something showing the latitude and longitude and date and time. And he won't hold his finger over the latitude readout of the GPS unit.) We then walked out along the road--a much easier route than the way in. On the way up we visited a geocache; on the way home we visited four more.

2008-07-31 30 -86 7/31/08 - This was a weekday geohash, very close to Niceville, and only about a hundred feet from the nearest paved road. I regret the missed opportunity.

2008-07-13 30 -86 Prediction: Dateline Sunday, July 13, 2008: Today's destination appears to be quite easily reachable. Liberian will try to be there at 4:00 PM.

The event: 7/13/08 - Liberian made the trip out Highway 20 to the nearest Eglin range road that led in the right direction. Around 4:00 the heavens opened and the rain poured down, with much thunder and lightning. "Quite easily reachable" was in terms of being on legally-accessible land, not being out in the Gulf, and not being too far from the road. Unfortunately, what Google Maps said was 1000 feet of mostly-open terrain turned out to be a third of a mile of scrub woods of varying thickness. Part of the route had been recently burned and so the underbrush was more open. Even so, Liberian was only able to get within about 150 feet of the location before turning back. On the way back he picked up a few old survey benchmarks (one of them at the entrance to the range road).

2008-06-29 30 -86 6/29/08 - The inaugural Geo-hash trip. There was finally a location that occurred (1) on a weekend and (2) in a place that was accessible. Liberian and Power Tool made the trip up State Highway 85 under a darkening sky, meeting where the range road turns west off the main highway. What had looked on the map like a several-mile hike turned out to be a well-packed dirt road accessible by car, so they drove to within a mile or two of the location. There was still an hour to go, and the "Plastic Town" geocache was nearby, so off they went to the geocache. On their way, the heavens opened and the rain fell. Liberian had an umbrella, but that served mostly to shield the cache when they found it. Umbrellas and forest don't mix very well. Back at the cars, they took counsel and decided to wait for the rain to ease. The rain did in fact ease off around quarter till, and off they went to the location. It was still raining a little and everything was thoroughly wet. After they reached the meet-up location and met up, wanting to get full use out of a trip into the Eglin ranges, they noted that the "PT 36" survey benchmark was nearby and on the back side of a stream relative to the main road. A few miles of walking down range roads brought them to a clearing with a helicopter landing pad and trees growing around it. The survey benchmark was in the middle of the landing pad. They also searched for the reference marks, but between the rain, the time, and the strong possibility that the reference marks had been buried when the roads were regraded, they did not find any of them. But still it was, all in all, quite a successful day outdoors.