2010-01-22 42 -89

Location

In the corner of a corn field.

Participants

Plans

Become real geohashers and get to our first hashpoint!

We were hanging out at a friends house that was only about 12 miles north of the hashpoint. We planned on swinging by the hashpoint on our way home (driving to the nearest intersecting roads and walking out into the field).

Expedition

It was a cold and foggy night (really foggy). We left at 11pm, excited for our first geohash expedition.

I think we averaged 30mph off the highway because it was so foggy. On the way to the hashpoint, we almost hit a raccoon, and then we did hit an opossum (but we did try to miss it). On the way back we almost hit a raccoon (we think it was the same one).

We were using our phones for navigation but kept loosing service. The GPS seemed to work, but there was no map data (as you can see in the images).

After taking some fun-less gravel roads we eventually made it to field where the hashpoint was. We parked on the side of the road near an opening in the fence, put on the blinkers, and started walking. It was dark and foggy and the only light we had was from our phones, which was tricky because we also used our phones for navigation. So I kept pointing my phone down to see where I was walking (through snow and rows of dead and broken corn stalks). Then had to stop and look at my phone to see where I was, then point my phone down again to continue walking.

I don't think we stopped right on the hashpoint, but I'm sure we crossed it a few times. The combination of losing service and not being able to see where we were going made it hard (and fun!), so we took some pictures and left.

Also, this was all on Saturday night (not Friday). We didn't realize we went to Friday's hashpoint until recording our expedition on Monday morning (we are still working out the kinks in our geohashing skills).