Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
Non omnes vagi perditi sunt
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October 2001

Geoffrey, the Ultimate Geocacher by Markwell
Released into Burlington Creek at N 41° 47.655 W 088° 05.846 on 10/9/2001
Mission 1: Cross to the western side of the Great Divide
Mission 2: Go to The Giving Tree at N 35° 10.475 W 085° 20.593

Travel Bugs. Nice idea, Jeremy! (No sarcasm intended.) Alan Friebeg (Arffer of Team CacheCows of Wisconsin) and I had been talking long and hard about the tracking of our hitchhikers. We had talked about the difference between Travelling Caches and Hitchhikers and talked about implementation. The current feeling is that if it's a hitchhiker, you go and try to pick it up - your luck might be that someone else picked it up ahead of you, but you still have a cache to find. On the Travelling Cache, where the entire box moves, we think there should be "Squatting Times," as displayed in Moving Target by Wil. All that aside, Jeremy had been secretly implementing and testing the Travel Bug, and once they went public I decided to get one and send out Geoffrey, the Ultimate Geocacher. Scooby Doo and Shaggy never had a clear mission, and they've kind of just wandered (albeit far). Geoffrey is definitely on a mission. This could be fun. I may have to do some thinking...

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A Trip to Chicago
Kelly Takes a Day Off of Work and takes his GPS to Chicago

I've been dying to try this Urban Cache. It just plain sounded fun. So after hopping off the train at Union Station, I walked up Wacker Drive until the construction stopped me. Hopping east a block I made it to the Chicago River just at 8:50. Now I knew my time was tight, as I also needed to get over to the Adler Planetarium to implement Peek-a-Boo! and then try to make it back for a 10:30 train. I didn't read the hints or the actual page, so I spent a GREAT deal of time on the landing by the Franklin Street Bridge, which is where the coordinates lead to. Unfortunately, the cache is another 400 feet away from there at 270°! By the time I figured it out, the construction guys were eyeing me quite suspiciously, so I decided to give up for today on this cache. Finding a taxi to take me to the Planetarium was another challenge.

My Sixth Cache! Peek-a-boo! by Markwell N 41° 52.007 W 087° 36.428 Difficulty: Terrain: Date "Hidden": 10/18/2001

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Cam-Cache (kamī kash) n. A Geocache that is set up to have a web-based camera trained on the location. Once the Cacher(s) reach the location, they activate the web camera to take their picture. This is becoming a neat sideline to Geocaching, so I decided to use the already existing Adler Planetarium's Chicago View Tru-Look Camera to do an Urban Virtual Cache. Someone once had also asked in the forums about caches in the downtown area, and the ONLY one was Wolf Point. So I set everything up, and called my dad and had him get to the website. He took my picture and a cache was born. I then found a significant piece of information that one could only find from going to the right coordinates, and tried to find a taxi. The new Museum Campus shoreline is such that the Planetarium is now well off the beaten path. With Lake Shore Drive diverted, the only people that go to the Planetarium are the people going to the Planetarium. With that in mind, it was impossible to find a taxi at 9:40 a.m. on a weekday at the Museum Campus. I ended up walking all the way to the Field Museum and luckily flagging a taxi. On to the train with 5 minutes to spare, which would get me back to Aurora at 12:30, just enough time to hit the dashpoint.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD4-01280 Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N42.3137° W087.9517° Date Found: 10/18/2001 Hunter: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

OK! I'm excited! Of all the possible dashpoints I've looked at so far, this is the first one in the Chicago area that looks like it might hold some interest. I drove up I-294 and all the way up to I-94 and the far north side (Belvidere Road?) Once I exited, I had no problem finding "Independence Grove" the forest preserve. The man at the gate indicated that it was $5 for non-Lake County residents, which I paid. This "Forest Preserve" seemed as well manicured as St. Andrew's Golf Course. Freshly mown lawns and well defined lakes, with large pavilions and cement paths. I decided I'd paid my $5, and dammit: I was gonna find ground zero. I set my GPS to meters and decided this was an OFFICIAL Geodash! Across a little bridge (and admire the "Indian Canoe" moored in the center of the lake) - watch out for the fuzzy caterpillar on the bridge - and to a freshly planted tree. That's right - Lake County FPD had clear-cut and constructed the area, and planted new trees with chicken wire around the trunks. As Sherry said, "What were they trying to preserve? The dirt?"I found Ground Zero and took several pictures, made them into a composite for later posting. Nice park, but still a disappointment.

For Goose Poop

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Last Updated: Thursday, February 21, 2002 15:00 CST