2008-07-14 39 -121

This was a highly suspenseful and exciting hash. Google maps showed it to be just a few steps off highway 20 between Colusa and Yuba City, so we headed down. I'm on the back of the motorbike, my somewhat reluctant geohashing (but more enthusiastic marriage) partner is driving, with the GPS mounted on the handlebars. The prearranged plan was that if he was hassled by highway patrol, to say that my boot was coming off so we had to stop for safety.

The road is perfect, with a wide shoulder, then a path beside unfenced orchards. There's going to be no problem stopping. We have two miles to go. In moments I'm going to be photographing the GPS under a lime tree. We pass a fruit stand. Perfect! I even have a reason to stop.

A mile to go, and suddenly the road narrows onto a bridgelike thing, no wider than the white lines at the edge of the road. It curves off to the left. It's long. I'm watching the numbers count down on the GPS from tenths of a mile, to feet, and then flip around to backwards. Finally, the bridge ends, maybe a quarter of a mile past the hash.

He takes the next turnoff and turns around. We go back the other way, slowly, hoping that perhaps we'll get close enough to the hash in the westbound lane, but even on the shoulder, it's clear that the hashpoint is off the edge of the bridge. It's so frustrating. I can't even see a river down there. It's just a plain. Who builds a bridge over a plain?

We return to the fruit stand at the west end of the bridge and each buy a