2009-03-05 49 -123

This may be the best Vancouver geohash location to date. It's in a park, not the five thousand acres on the side of a mountain full of bears and avalanches sort of park, but Chaldecott Park, the half a city block with swings and softball fields and parents with kids in strollers sort of park. Plus it's right near UBC, a prime source of geohashers.

Participants

Robyn with T-Rex and Успех
thepiguy was the wheels for Galxstar and MyISh
MylSh on his second geohash
Galaxstar enabled MyISh to achieve the dragalong

Srs0 wasn't able to make it due to being unconscious and incapacitated.

Expedition

Robyn followed the Ridgeway bike route until it dead-ended at the UBC endowment lands then just followed her GPS the remaining 900 metres to the clump of trees in the middle of the park, just as shown on Google Maps. The map didn't show the park bench seven metres from the geohash, but it was there. Robyn laid out the picnic blanket, Twister game, dinosaur, picnic dinner, and GPS, and waited for more geohashers to arrive. It was a little bit cold, but Robyn had brought a toque and a scarf.

Robyn was expecting thepiguy to arrive at five, with some dragalongs in tow, but he still wasn't there at five-thirty. Robyn wasn't too worried, though. It can take a while to explain to people why they should come to a park with you instead of doing their homework. Robyn also knew that there was no way that thepiguy would miss an easy Vancouver geohash. Seeing as he didn't come before class, and he didn't have time to get here since class, he had to arrive in the next six and a half hours. And if he didn't, Robyn was halfway to the camping geohash, so waited patiently.

It's remarkable how much a guy walking along selecting what tune to play on his iPod looks like a geohasher. Robyn asked some women if they were geohashers, but when they didn't understand on the second iteration she just said, "Never mind. If you were you would have understood the question," and smiled at them in her best 'unsettling' mode.

And then Pi, MylSh and Galaxstar arrived, by car. Clearly Pi knows how to select the appropriate people for such an expedition. Despite having never played with a GPS before, MylSh instinctively assumed the distinctive geohasher posture: head-down walking in vague circles trying to pinpoint the geohash with Robyn's GPS. Thepiguy asked Robyn if she had found the geocache yet. Geocache? Robyn didn't have the coordinates for the geocache in this park. It wasn't, it turns out, just in the park. It was at almost the same coordinates, the only difference being one second of latitude.

Thepiguy possesses the innate ability to think like a squirrel, so almost immediately pinpointed the most likely tree to hide a cache in, and found it quickly. More celebration and photographs ensued. I attempted to share my picnic food but the items I had brought fell mainly into the categories of 1) already eaten 2) not very good and 3) a chilled beverage. The chilled beverage category overlapped with what thepiguy had brought, but we determined that none of us was really keen on consuming chilled beverages. Next winter geohash I'll bring a thermos of hot chocolate instead.

So we moved onto earning our Twister achievement. Note: placing the spinner on a sloped surface may result in everyone having all their limbs on red. Also outdoor winter Twister played in sock feet makes you feel more like all your limbs are blue. I shouldn't whine: there was no snow on the ground and the thermometer showed six degrees. Meghan will be laughing at us from her frozen, storm-warning-alerted graticule. I'm sure that if we'd stayed for the midnight geohash we would have logged frozen there, but we went home to be warm.

Photographs

Fully equipped for a Twister picnic hash collision.
Galaxstar and MylSh pose for a photo as thepiguy looks for the geocache.
The outside of the cleverly camouflaged geocache box.
The contents of the geocache. You can tell how excited we are by all of the hands reaching into the picture.
A view of thepiguy at the geohash, taken from the geocache.
A view of the geocache, taken from the geohash.
The group shot!
MylSh toasting the evening with a glass of champagne*
thepiguy's contribution to the feast.
Here we are setting up for Twister!
Let the game begin!
Aaannd... it's over.
Six point six degrees is not that cold, but it felt cold.
thepiguy's GPS
Robyn's mode of transportation all loaded up.