2013-12-31 42 -88

Location

In the snowy parking lot of Medieval Times in Schaumburg

Participants

Plans

Haberdasher alerted me to the interesting location earlier, but the planning was pretty much spur of the moment. I had nothing to do until around 7 and was curious... I left at 3:25 or so by ancient rear-wheel-drive Volvo wagon and thought I'd arrive around 4 or a little later. Snow was just starting to come down and it was in the lower teens F (something like -10C.)

Expedition

The drive through N/NW Chicago suburbs was a little slow but still OK, enlivened by an exciting Illinois-Indiana college basketball game on the radio. As the Illini clung to a small lead late in overtime, I exited I-90 near the destination (around 4:30) but found Roselle Road extremely slick. Living in 47,-122 for 5+ years has softened me up unfortunately... I got impatient and the car skidded a few times, but eventually found better traction and I made it to the property of Medieval Times intact. Luckily they were open for business and I pulled into a parking space in the general area I vaguely remembered from the satellite picture. Waited for the game to end (Illinois won!) and then went outside to find the point.

When I finally got geohashdroid to acknowledge my location (I had to open up the maps app and press the re-center button) I found I'd parked only a few meters from the point! After a very quick hashdance I was on it. It occured to me that tons of people were parked here to go pay $$ to see some cheesy medieval jousting inside a closed arena and eat turkey legs, and I was just geohashing for some reason.

At that point I was quite hungry and in need of a restroom, so a food stop was in order and Chipotle was the first place I saw. By the time I finally started heading back conditions were extremely slick and treacherous (must have been too cold to salt and too much of a holiday evening to plow). I skidded into the curb a few times before proceeding to go about 15-20 mph (something like 30 km/h) the whole way home... I didn't get back until close to 7:30. The Haberdasher party was definitely smart to sit this one out. Had a fine New Year's Eve at least, at a friend's party a few L stops away.

Looking now at the nearby weather observations, it was 11F (around -12C) at both Wheeling and O'Hare airports that hour, so I think this is convincingly a Frozen Geohash. Should have taken a picture of the car's thermometer though...