2012-02-17 40 -74

Location

In the Upper Bay due east of Newark Liberty International Airport

Participants

NWoodruff, his older brother, and a couple of hundred fish. Also with some luck, Jevanyn.

Plans

To use public transportation from Atlanta Georgia to Newark Penn Station via Newark Liberty International airport. Following a train ride to Hackettstown New Jersey to pick up a vehicle and then on to the Geohash spot around 5 to 6pm in the evening.

Expedition

I had purchased a vehicle via the internet from an auto dealer in Hackettstown NJ.

I had made plans earlier in the week to be at Newark Liberty on Friday Morning. I had talked with Jevanyn earlier in week by email that I was going to make it to Newark and wanted to make a Geohash location with him since he is #3 on my list of people I want to Geohash with.

I was hoping to arrive at 8am to Newark Liberty to catch an 9:30am train ride to Hackettstown. That would give us all day to find and be at the Geohash spot in this graticule.

Well, sometimes you can't rely on public transportation. Because of an unscheduled delay in D.C. for 2 hours, we missed the 9:30am train to Hackettstown. I was hoping that there was another train leaving soon. But our hopes were dashed when we learned that the next train was not due to leave until 2:41 pm. and put us in Hackettstown at 4:16pm.

I was hoping that sometime in the evening when Jevanyn finished work that he would be able to meet us at the hash spot where ever it was going to be. But, I had learned earlier in the day when Jevanyn called us that the Geohash spot was in the Upper Bay, and was not reachable. I had not remembered because of lack of sleep from screaming little children on the trip there for most of the entire trip, that when two people traveling independent of each other meet, that it is still considered a valid meetup. Well depression set in when, I learned that there was not another train out to Hackettstown until early afternoon.

Jevanyn had called us about 10am to inform us of the location and was busy at work and couldn't talk long. He had said that he would call us back around 1 or 2 pm in the afternoon to make plans to meet somewhere near the hash point.

My brother and I walked around Penn station for a while killing time and acting like tourists and possibly terrorists by the number of pictures that we took. I know people there are still spooked by people walking around taking pictures of buildings. Some authority figure did inform us that we were not to take pictures at one of the places that we were. I don't believe it was the NJ police but someone one else of authority.

We then made it to the Newark Broad Street Station by about 2pm and waited for the 2:41pm train. We boarded the train and and left for Hackettstown. At the end of the line after exiting the train, my brothers cell phone beeped. It was Jevanyn. For some reason his call had gone to voice mail and my brother did not get a notification until we were off the train.

We made it to the dealership and were finished with the paperwork and had the keys by 5:30pm. Both my brother and I looked at the map and decided that the maybe hour trip back to Newark in rush hour and then drive I-95 to I-85 to Atlanta was going to be full of rush hour traffic all the way back through Baltimore.

So instead we decided to pick up I-78 out of Easton PA and take I-81 to I-77 in North Carolina. We knew that it was going to be a long trip back to Atlanta but adding an extra 4 hours because of a Geohash and rush hour traffic was just not doable in the reduced conditions that we both were.

We drove through the night and made the 803 miles back to Atlanta in 15 hours.