2022-09-18 45 -122

"I think we managed to get away without too much staring"

Location

Heron Lakes Golf Course in Kenton, Portland, Oregon. It seems to be in a patch of trees in the course, and since it's a public course owned by Portland Parks & Rec, we can go annoy golfers without paying!

Participants

Hamblingreen
My parents. My mom actually came up to ME this morning and said "i think your geohashing thing is really close today". I was speechless, I think she might actually like these spontaneous adventures! She's not the most spontaneous person so I'm excited to see her so thrilled about these expeditions.

Plans

We'll drive out to Heron Lakes Golf Course, trash bags in hand in case we find some trash at the course. Maybe the golfers will be less annoyed of our presence if we are cleaning up their course. I'll be in my formal attire because... golf courses are supposed to be fancy? I don't know. Anyway, If we make it to the hashpoint I'll have my first successful geohash of the land variety, and I'll have dragged along my parents. That's a grand total of 5 achievements in my (hopefully) successful adventure! The trash-picking-up makes for a good cover story as well since we clearly are not golfers.

Oh, looking back I already marked geotrash as completed. I didn't take a picture of those discarded cups last time, so I'll delete that and try for it this time.

Expedition

As we piled in the car and headed out to Heron Lake, I realized we forgot our trash bags. What will be our cover story now? We decided that if anyone asked why some kid was walking around with his parents in slacks and a tie we'd just say I was writing a paper on historic Vanport. It was a weak excuse, but since we clearly weren't golfers it was the only excuse we had. We got out of the car near the driving range, snapped some pictures, and started walking a short bit to the hash. I was looking around everywhere for a spare golf ball, but I had no luck! After walking through some trees, we made it to the point with the help of Mepo maps. I stuck a Crox poster into a tree using a nail I brought with me and a rock I found nearby. After the obligitory happy dance and Goofy Grin TM, we were off. We walked back through the treed and passed a ton of blackberries that we picked for a snack. We got some funny looks from some golfers, but nobody asked us what the heck we were doing.

That's when it caught my eye. A bright yellow spot on the smooth golf course. I immediately ran towards it as my dad shouted at me. I bent down and picked it up. Is it what I thought? Yes! I found a dirty, discarded, unwanted golf ball. I ran back towards the hashpoint as my parents whipped around. I didn't care, I needed to throw a golf ball at a tree. I snapped a quick selfie with the poster and ball, threw it at the tree, and left. When I caught back up with my parents they were beyond confused, and telling them about the golf geohash achievement didnt help at all. I'd done it!

Distractions and Detours

On the way back we stopped and chilled with some pellicans and harons at Haron Lake. There were few distractions this expedition because we were in a hurry to leave.