2010-03-28 global

Location

I didn't check the global hash until Danatar alerted me to the fact that it's in Idaho, only 800 km away from Vancouver across one international border. That's about ten hours drive, plus we need to ford a river and climb 700' in elevation up a steep mountainside.

Participants

• Robyn
• Wade
• Jim Van Sky

Planning

Planning personnel initially included Robyn, Wade and Rhonda. Knowing it was possible that the roads in the area were blocked by snow, as was discovered by intrepid geohasher David Souther last year about this time, we started research. The geohash is on top of a plateau near the town of St. Maries. Highway three gets to within hiking distance of the point, with a river to ford, and there are some logging roads that get very close (and up the hill), but as mentioned, they may have been blocked by snow this time of year. In the Google satellite view, the area is a cutblock, so it's probably all young trees and dense underbrush by now. We've spent hours in the past going a few hundred metres in terrain like that. Vancouver geohashers may be stupidly obsessed in pursuit of their goals, but they do learn from experience.

It's not that members of the Vancouver graticule hesitate to traverse brambles, steep hills, large bodies of water or other obstacles. It's just that the geohash was over eight hundred kilometres away, and the last hundred or so would be on some twisty local roads of unknown condition. And some geohashers need to get to work on Monday morning. Investigation of the local area and goading from other geohashers revealed that St. Maries has a small local airport. Not entirely seriously, just really to prove that we tried our hardest within the constraints, we checked into helicopter charter. There is no helicopter outfit out of St Maries, but Coeur d'Alene, about 50 kilometres away as the crow--or helicopter--flies, has a helicopter company called Big Country whose owner/dispatcher/pilot Jim Van Sky answers his phone promptly and doesn't say "you want to do what?" when presented with a set of lat long coordinates. He could take up to three people, totalling with their gear up to 600 lbs. And the price was about the same as an inflatable kayak. Robyn told him she'd discuss it with the group and get back to him.

Jim also told us that the snow level was above 4000', so we could have taken that information and realized that we could drive to the base of the hill on highway three and hike up. Xore said if Rhonda was going "he's not bloody well going to miss it," and both favoured the drive-and-hike approach, so Robyn called back the helicopter pilot and said they would not require his services. Rhonda then rolled a sanity check, and she must have a very high wisdom score indeed, because she successfully made the sanity check and was unable to justify the expedition to herself. That removed the condition that forced Xore to go, so it was back to Wade and Robyn.

They too could have hiked, but once the idea of taking a helicopter to a globalhash had been raised, it was hard to let go. In Wade's words, "I want to go for a helicopter ride." Coeur d'Alene is on I90, a major US highway, so it was guaranteed to be clear. Only driving as far as Coeur d'Alene instead of all the way to St. Maries would take four hours off the round trip, and not hiking up and down the hill an unknown amount, but possibly another four. It made the trip more possible. And way way cool. Hmm. Was this going to happen?

The weather had to permit the helicopter--and the tiny car--to make the trip. The forecast for Sunday morning was mostly cloudy in Coeur d'Alene, but the aviation weather assured us those clouds would be high above. We were not guaranteed able to land at the geohash. The pilot would have to approve the the site as safe, but at minimum we would achieve an airhash. Robyn packed for the trip while we thought about it. It was about 3:30 pm by the time planning and discussion was complete. Robyn called Jim back again and said we'd see him at 9:45 the next morning.

Expedition

Leaving Home

Sadly, Robyn couldn't find T-Rex. She thought he was in the car, but he wasn't. We left with two GPS receivers, an iPod touch for communications, a change of underwear and socks, and no dinosaurs. We'd got as far as the Knight Street bridge when neither one of us could guarantee having closed the garage door. Robyn took the first exit and doubled back over the bridge to go and see.

"You know," said Wade. "This is a chance for us to change our minds." But you know what, we like road trips. It was a weekend getaway. In addition to the helicopter charter, this would cost us two and a half tanks of cheap American gasoline, a night in a cheap motel, and some fast food. We put in in perspective. What else would we spend it on? It was better than a carload of IKEA furniture. It was better than a new suit. It was better than airfare and a hotel in Vegas. The globalhash it was. We drove up our street and the garage was already closed. One of those reflex things that you do without recording that you've done it. We set off again and reached the US border just before four p.m.

Border Crossing

This was to be Wade's first border hash, although the difficulty he had with the ribbon leads us to wonder if ordinary achievements can be claimed in conjunction with the globalhash. The Peace Arch crossing has a system where you get in line and shut off your engine, then every fifteen minutes or so they turn a traffic light green and everyone moves up 500 metres or so, then stops and turns off their ignition again. There's a countdown timer on the light so everyone can get out and play in the park and not sit in the car and develop road rage. But after we got in line and shut off the engine, some cars inched forward. The ones in the other line inched forward more, but that's one of those facts of life. Robyn started the car again and closed up the gap before shutting down again and giving dirty looks to the people who were still idling their cars, pointedly glancing at the signs instructing engines off while the light was red. But the cars kept inching forward.

We were definitely in the wrong line, too. We decided to let the gap open further to reduce the number engine starts, but as soon as the gap in front opened to two car lengths, a woman in the lane next to us, yes, the faster moving lane, changed lanes to jump into ours. It made Robyn giggle all the way through the hour wait to think of her changing lanes for no reason. If we'd been sharp we could have switched lanes into her spot at the same time. But the ignition was off. After that we put the car in neutral and Wade pushed with his foot out the door until we reached the downhill and could hold it just with the brake. When we got to within sight of the light, we could see that people were running it, treating it like a stop sign. Robyn decided to set a good example and stop and wait at the light, but there was the additional problem that the two lanes condensed into one lane basically at the traffic light. So everyone was merging while running the red light really slowly. Thus after about twenty seconds of waiting behind/beside Robyn at the light, the vehicle behind us pulled around and ran the light in front of us. We surrendered to peer pressure and ran the light. Maybe it was broken. The timer wasn't running.

When we finally got to the border control point we handed over our passports and announced our agreed upon and perfectly true intentions, "We're going to look at some property in Idaho." The agent posed the testing question of "how many acres?" at which point Robyn admitted that she didn't really know, we were really looking, not buying, but we were going to get to go for a helicopter ride, and how cool is that? He gave us our passports back and let us in.

Driving to Coeur d'Alene

Th I-5 south is a familiar route for both of us, as when Wade and Robyn were first married their places of residence were separated by about 200 km of said highway. It winds through lots of scenic forested terrain, but we didn't take any pictures because we were saving the camera battery packs for for the helicopter ride. You may refer to pictures of the area from previous expeditions in the area. We exited the I-5 just north of Seattle and connected to I-90, then exited in Issaquah where, after some negotiations with the nuvi driving GPS, we found both a gas station and a source of quick food that was not fast food. If you know one word of Vietnamese (and you're not the protagonist in John Irvings 'A Prayer for Owen Meany), that word should be Phở. Yummy, yummy vegetables, tofu, vermicelli and peanut sprinkles, with that hot sauce that come in a big bottle with a picture of a cock on it.

Bellies and fuel tanks refilled, we overrode the GPS instructions to go around the block and do a U-turn, and just hung a left and a right back onto the freeway. The I-90 goes up over the mountains, winding between spectacular lakes and over the rolling foothills and into the plains of eastern Washington, but we didn't see the last, because it got dark. The driving GPS and the points of light reflecting in the water told us we were passing a number of towns and lakes and reservoirs. We traversed a county in Washington which proclaimed itself the premier potato producing county in the nation, kind of a let down, because we were under the impression that our destination Idaho was the potato capital of the nation. We just took it as a sign that we were drawing nearer to Idaho.

And eventually we did reach Idaho. There was a Welcome To Idaho sign and everything, but we didn't photograph it, in that it was dark and after eleven and we were tired. Idaho is a pretty skinny state, so we were in Coeur d'Alene quite soon after crossing the border and checked into a hotel near the airport, where we posted the following status message.

We're in Coeur d'Alene. We're fighting over Robyn's iPod and it's a pain to edit wiki pages. It was really fun driving down, but not as cool as the helicopter will be. Neener. -Wade 07:01, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Another Border Crossing

I have leg of lamb in the slow cooker. If you're back in vancouver about 8PM you're welcome to join us. -- Rhonda 17:29, 28 March 2010 (UTC)