2013-11-09 43 -86

Location

rural property in Fruitport, MI, USA

Participants

Mcbaneg (talk) (George)
Rebekah

Expedition

We were headed northwest to visit friends on the lakeshore (that is, the Lake Michigan shore) overnight, and today's hashpoint was in the southeast corner of a graticule that is (1) mostly water, (2) virgin, and (3) part of the set we need for a Minesweeper achievement. It looked easily accessible, but on private land a good ways behind an associated house, so it seemed likely we would need to ask permission.

We found the house without difficulty, set just a little back from the road. There was a flag flying. We walked onto the porch (past a No Solicitors) sign, and a small dog in the house started barking. A lady opened the door before we knocked and looked quizzically at us: 51-year-old man and 14-year-old, and it's not Girl Scout Cookie season. I said we needed to ask her permission to walk through her backyard, and explained that we were playing a game where we tried to get to particular spots on the earth, and today's spot for our region was at the back of her property near the sandpit. We showed her the Google map and pointed out her house and driveway, and she then pointed near the hashpoint and said "and there's the pond". She somewhat reluctantly smiled and said "well, okay" and we thanked her and headed back there. There was in fact a tiny pond just south of the sandpile, so we skirted around it and found the spot just near the sandpile. Notice the compass picture.

I checked http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Michigan and it shows that the Holland graticule is virgin, and the graticule page shows no successful expeditions, so I'm claiming the Virgin Graticule achievement. If someone knows of an earlier documented successful expedition, please let me know and I'll retract the claim! This seemed unreasonably easy, given that it's five years since the game started and there's a highly regarded college right here at the hashpoint, but I'm not looking this gift horse in the mouth.