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

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD5-03945 Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N41.6672°d W088.4740° Date Found: 11/4/2001 Hunters: Kelly, Drew and Sam

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Heading out to a cache to give Sherry time for college, me and the boys decided to head out for Dudley's Enchanted Forest and the November Dashpoint closest to home (between Yorkville and Plano). Another uneventful dashpoint in the middle of a corn field. Sammy was sound asleep when I got there so I drove as close as I could get and scoped out the territory. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but it was still a cornfield. I keep dashing for the fun of the maps and the coordinates - but I really am gonna have to see some more interesting points come up to justify getting out.

Dudley’s Enchanted Forest by The Geomancers N 41° 52.359 W 088° 25.969 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 11/4/2001 Hunter: Kelly, Drew and Sam

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

What a nice cache! Too bad I took such a wrong turn. I started off with a freshly snoozed Sam, and Drew really chomping at the bit. We went down a wonderful paved path that seemed to be climbing Johnson's Mound, only to have it lead us in the completely wrong direction as it wound to the summit. Back to the starting spot (and one fresh diaper later) we found our error and headed down the correct path. Undaunted, but struggling with two already tired boys, we found the radio tower and thought that we were getting fairly close. That path through the prairie was one of the longest short hikes I've ever had! We finally reached the cache and found it with no problem. We exchanged our trinkets and signed the books, and then made the return trip. All-in-all, it was a good cache, complete with 6 dogs on the trail and that elusive paved path just on the other side of the cache (could that have gotten us there in 5 minutes of driving?!?). We were tired, but proud of our efforts for the day.

The Hall of Justice (GC27B6)

Aquaman		Wonder Woman
	Green Lantern's Report
Batman		Superman

My Seventh Cache! The Hall of Justice by Markwell N 41° 37.879 W 088° 31.683 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Hidden: 11/12/2001 - redone coordinates on 11/19/2001

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

After coming up with the concept of the theme cache, I needed a location. After searching the web for quite some time, I found that Silver Spring State Park was just on the far side of Yorkville. A State Park that close, and I never knew about it! This cache was going to be a "proper" cache - 5 or 6 action figures, 10 comic books, a good log book and all stored in an ammo can. I got everything and went hiking with Drew on the morning of November 12. We went all around the park and Drew was very excited to hide this one (as opposed to hiding the others, which he didn't really relish). Nevertheless, my uncanny knack was rearing its ugly head again. I would find a perfect spot after having been off the trail for about 10 minutes, only to search the area to find it 10 feet from another path. I originally placed it in the hollow of a tree next to a big metal bin, but that location made me nervous all week long. I begged Sherry to let me go out by myself on November 17 to relocate the cache. She relented. I took the cache which was no longer hidden and placed it in my backpack. I circled all the way around Loon Lake and up into the hills. You guessed it - found a great fallen tree, which turned out to be only a few yards from the secondary (main) entrance. Back to the trails, I eventually found a great hiding spot and took many, many readings. I finally decided that while it would be shorter to walk from the main entrance to the cache, I would give the parking coordinates that I had used. The walk would be longer (0.42 miles), but the view would be worth it.

Aquaman was probably the easiest to implement. Eraseek said "sure" immediately, and I had no problems getting it to him. He received the Travel Bug and placed in almost immediately. By November 25, Aquaman had already moved to another state, through three caches.

Batman was an easy character to find (probably the easiest along with Superman). They were in KayBee Toys for about $8 each. Batman originally came with wings and some other junk, but that was just too cumbersome to worry about. Buxley received the Travel Bug fairly quickly, but has delayed its release for unknown reasons.

Superman was also pretty easy. The character I found was a "Quick Change" Superman, so I used David April's mouse-over java code from his Shine, Little Glow Worm page to make Superman turn into Clark Kent with a MouseOver. Not a bad little bit of HTML coding. The initial cache (Tarpon Triple) was also one that I helped implement with Infosponge by giving him a few tips on hard mathematical questions.

By far the most intriguing story of the four Action Figures. Having tried Graham Cracker Comics' multiple locations, I found that Wonder Woman was in short supply. So I looked on Ebay, and found one that day, set to close at 7pm local time, currently listed as $5. I registered and upped the bid to $7.50 - and there was no activity at all. 6:55 p.m.: I decided to check. Sure enough, the other bidder had upped it to $8.00 at 6:48. I hurredly clicked away and clicked the final button to submit my bid of $8.50 and the results came back that my bid was successful with 11 seconds to spare! Wonder Woman arrived several days later, was photographed on November 17 and shipped in the mail to my helper in Maine. It has arrived but as of November 25, has not been "grabbed" or placed in a cache.

Mission 12: Blind Canal by Project A.P.E. N 41° 23.329 W 088° 14.780 Difficulty: Terrain: Revisit: 11/12/2001 Hunter: Kelly and Drew

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I went out to retrieve the camera, thinking it was full. It was not - it had 7 pictures left. I think the spare camera that Rob Reindl placed in the cache is confusing them as to which is the cache camera. Drew got to use the GPS a lot more on this hunt, since I already knew where the cache was. He was fascinated with the tracking of speed, and did use it quite well to get to the cache. Took a picture of Drew and me and returned the camera to the box.

Previously visited cache, logged as other. Not going to count this one in the monthly stats.

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