2009-09-17 42 -70

Location

In the woods in Marshfield, Massachusetts.

Participants

Manu, Reinhard, Sara, Sara's Daughter, Sara's Son

Expedition

Sara

I am very grateful to Manu and Reinhard for taking time out of their vacation to geohash with my kids and me. I had a great time talking to them, and the kids enjoyed it too. My daughter said "Reinhard is funny and Manu is very nice."

I picked up the kids at the end of school, and we drove out to Marshfield, which took just under three hours, including one quick stop. My son remarked "This is a long drive and we're being very patient" and he was right - the kids did very well in the car. We practiced saying "Hello, how are you?" in German, but none of us ended up having the guts to actually try out our German on Manu or Reinhard.

When we made a pit stop at a large chain bookstore in Braintree, MA, we noticed that they had several newspapers in Arabic.

Just as we entered Marshfield, just about at 5:30pm, the time we had agreed to meet, we got a text message from Manu and Reinhard saying they were parked on Main Street near the hashpoint. We parked only a few minutes later, but it took us some time to find Manu and Reinhard because they had assumed we'd meet on Main Street at the building closest to the hashpoint, whereas the kids and I had assumed we'd meet at the hashpoint. In fact, while walking to the hashpoint, the kids and I saw a footprint that was too big to be mine and we thought it must be Reinhard's (but it wasn't, he hadn't left the road yet).

Eventually we found each other, and my son greeted Manu and Reinhard with "Are you from the Internet?" I had wanted them to ask "Kummin Sie fun dein Internet?" but they refused, perhaps because that's not proper German. Anyway, Manu and Reinhard answered "Yes, we're from the Internet."

For some reason it was more surprising to see Wischi in person than to see Manu and Reinhard in person.

Together, we walked for a few minutes up a wide path that had been cleared for power lines, and then turned and walked through the woods for the last few minutes. For the first time since we began geohashing, the kids held the GPS and led the way.

We arrived near the point and Reinhard did a GPS dance. Then we had our picnic. I had brought peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches and homemade chocolate chip cookies, because those are important foods to try on a visit to the USA. I also brought apples and honey, to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, because Rosh Hashahah is tomorrow evening and I thought maybe Manu and Reinhard had never had a chance to celebrate a Jewish holiday before. (Indeed, they hadn't. I didn't ask whether they were aware of ever having met a Jew before, but I'd love to know. I suspect this was the first time they had ever been outnumbered by Jews.) I brought a few other things, and Manu and Reinhard had also brought chocolate chip cookies.

Please be aware that I usually do not allow my kids to eat unlimited amounts of sugary foods; I allowed it today mostly because I wanted to be able to talk to Manu and Reinhard rather than negotiating about how many cookies people were allowed to eat.

When it started to get dark, we packed up and walked back to our cars.

The kids and I made a stop before getting on the highway to put pajamas on one of our party, then the kids went to sleep in the car on the way home.

In total, the kids and I drove about 385 km for this geohash.