Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
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January 2002

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD7-03926 Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N41.5253° W088.2574° Date Found: 1/1/2002 Hunters: Kelly and Sam Northwest of Route 52 & County Line Road 8.23 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Title: On a Clear Day, You Can See Forever Narrative: The dashpoints get nearer and nearer to my home each game! GD7-03926 is only 8.23 miles from my front doorstop. County Line Road goes almost directly from my doorstop to the dashpoint, straight south. The road runs just to the east of Ridge Road, one of the high points around Will and Kendall county. On Ridge Road, you can see both directions beyond the regular horizon levels. Riding on County Line Road, I had a clear view of the lay to the east, but the ridge laid between me and the western view. For you people in Utah, the settlers used the term "Ridge" very loosely around here. Ridge has come to mean a point that had an elevation of 200m instead of the normal 182m (I'm not kidding). The X-point (is this where you disembark from your vehicle?) was on County Line road, approximately 200 meters due east from the zero point - 100 meters from scoring range. The zero point and scoring range lie within a plowed field of corn, with the furrows still making plenty of loose dirt. There were a few stray corn cobs, but nothing too large. With a snoozing 2yo in the car and the hazard lights flashing, I strode the 100 meters into the field to catch the score, but hustled back to the car before the kid even knew I was gone. With the temperatures around 23°F (-5°C) I didn't feel the need to walk any further from the heated (and idling) car and sleeping toddler than necessary. A quick jaunt back to pick up lunch at our favorite Oriental Food establishment, and I was back at home in front of the warm fireplace to enjoy a pleasant day off with the family.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD7-03961 Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N41.7340° W087.9197° Date Found: 1/1/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew and Sam Southwest of Chicago, South of the Intersection of I-55 & I-294, East of a different County Line Road 17.17 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Title: Hidden Lake Narrative: What a splendid day. The wife, still recovering from bad back, decided that she needed some shut-eye, and the two boys were now stir crazy. I looked on the maps and discovered - sure enough - another drivable dashpoint. GD7-03961 lies just up Interstate 55 toward Chicago. For those unindoctrinated to the area (which I presume is most of you) the Sears Tower building can be seen from great distances. I live just near the 267 exit off of I-55 and this dashpoint was just off of Exit 276. However, even though I've known it for years, today I took note that on this Interstate approaching Chicago, one has a turn around mile marker 273 that gives you a first glimpse of the Tower in all its splendor. Clear days like today make it a beautiful sight, even to one who has lived in the area all of his 34 years. The dashpoint is in a very well-to-do neighborhood, surrounding "Hidden Lake" in the suburb of Burr Ridge. The Mapblast maps and the topo and satellite pictures were in conflict, as Mapblast indicated that Hidden Lake Drive continued on through the subdivision (it did not). I continued throughout the subdivision and scored the points at 82 meters on Lakewood Drive, but I knew I could do better. Driving around, I found the Cul-De-Sac that was Hidden Lake Drive and took it to the turn around. Scout - your "Maximum-Z-axis" factor must have mistaken the yearly income in this house for elevation. The zero point lays squarely in the back yard of probably the largest house of this already well-to-do neighborhood. I took pictures of the house from about 50 meters from the zero point, and then drove through the neighborhood until I found a vantage point to take a few spectacular shots of the back of the house. I pulled out the telephoto lens and got some great photos that include the home's holiday decorations on the back. I'll post the pictures later this week when I get the film developed. Another snoozing kid in the car by the end, and we traveled home to see a glorious winter sunset over the plowed fields of the Midwest.

A while ago, in the forums, we had fun with the topic News: Mystery 200-Year-Old Box Found Under Street. Navdog posted: I knew Jeremy had placed a TIME TRAVELING TRAVEL BUG! redd posted: A new sport is born: chronocaching. Newer models of GPS receivers will have settings not only for latitude, longitude, but also date. Jeremy posted: Blast! The time was set for 2801. Must have been a parallel time shift. I'll have to chronomail IlluvianSeknetG@sector5.geocaching.com and let him know not to hypersnorp there. Markwell posted: I will saw one once with a panafranoptic stabilizer. It will allowed the user to quintagulate from multiple vectors using crosstransmogrified frequencies. This is particularly useful in hypersnorping your chronocache. and finally... Jeremy posted: I'm still pondering whether I should purchase the Garmin MMLXXX or the Microsoft Magellan Millenium Edition (tm) With Noseduct PC(tm) installed. With Microsoft Magellan I tend to drool whenever it crashes. The Garmin Linux5 OS is much more stable but there is a certain lack of holiscoping programs for material transfer. It's all so vexing.

Beverly by Robamy N 42° 05.401 W 088° 13.461 Difficulty: Terrain: Original Date Found: 6/23/2001 Date Revisited: 1/12/2002 Hunters: Kelly, IlluvianSeknetG

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Not much to add, except that the landscape is quite different in the wintertime, with no ticks and a gloriously barren landscape. Gone was the shoulder-heighth grass and the thickets that made the cache next to impossible to get to.

Second Visit Not logged as found.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD7-03921 Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N42.0966° W088.3137° Date Found: 1/12/2002 Hunter: Kelly Northwest of Chicago, Dundee, Illinois 31.63 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Title: First Contact Narrative: An unexpected trip to Barrington, IL (60010) to start some prep work for a database/info sys gig I'll be doing for my church's conference, brought my within 10 miles of GD7-03921. With this and the release of the Travel Bug IlluvianSeknetG and the cooresponding re-visit to the classic cache Beverly (ID=40) made for a great, albeit long, afternoon. The dashpoint was in the neighboring town of Dundee, home of the area's best little kids amusement park, Santa's Village. The next door attraction, Racing Rapids Water Park, is equally as fun, but is more geared toward the older kids and adults. I first visited these parks a little over 10 years ago while doing a college summer job working for a day care facility. The point itself was quite a conundrum. The roads all lay around a rectangle (long sides being north-south) of what appeared to be undeveloped land from the closest road approach (175 m from the west side). I could see some forestation and knew from the maps that there was a creek between the western road and the dashpoint. I was able to follow the rest of the rectangle into a subdivision and finally get to the closest point on the east side (180m) but I knew I would have to ask landowner permission to cross their yards into scoring territory. This would be the first time I would have to ask permission on any of my dash hunts. I spotted an elderly gentleman walking around his house, apparently just surveying the house itself for anything out of the ordinary. He was wearing a maroon sweatervest and plaid pants, and was balding considerably, with the remnants of hair a bright white. Just the picture of a suburban "grandpa". I approached with maps and main page printout and tentatively explained my intentions. He said he didn't mind my walking back there, but as I crossed his property, he continuously watch me from his back porch. Once into the back of the house, his yard abruptly ended in something I would never have expected there: stubble from a cornfield. I got to the zero point and was standing smack dab in the middle of a suburban cornfield. I looked all directions and found no trace of a barn or even a shed for a tractor. Making my way back to the car, the elderly gentleman wandered back into his house shaking his head. I find it ironic that in an overly developed surbubia USA, what does this dashpoint lead to but another cornfield!! Scout's Follow-Up Comment: I think it must be the Illinois variant of the z-coordinate bug. If there's a cornfield to be found, a random dashpoint will home in on it.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD7-03968 Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N41.3122° W087.7883° Date Found: 1/19/2002 Hunter: Kelly, Drew and Sam Southwest of Chicago, Peotone, IL 32.31 miles from home, Elevation 218m

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Title: Something Old, Something New Getting there is definitely all the fun. The point itself was boring as usual (can anyone guess the crop that was grown here last summer?), but the journey was a real trip. “Something Old” In getting to the dashpoint's town, while 18 miles west of the dashpoint, I had to go through Wilmington, IL, the town where my parents met when they were in high school together. The town has maintained its small-town feel and population, and is one of the "Route 66" towns, complete with a Giant Astronaut (the Gemini Giant) outside the Launchpad Drive-In restaurant, one of the kitschy attractions that could be found on this old national highway. Fortunately, the Astronaut, complete with his hand-held rocket, survives today. You can see a picture of him at the following sites: Site A, Site B, Site C, or Site D; or wait for me to post my pictures in about 2 weeks. For the international portion of the dashers, you can learn a little more about Route 66 on one of these three sites: Site A, Site B, or Site C. “Something New” Peotone, Illinois is a small 130 year old farming community that is the county seat for Will County, where my home town of Plainfield is. It has been the center of great controversy in the Chicago area for about 3 years, as the Mayor of Chicago and the present and past Governor of Illinois have argued extensively about Chicago's need for a third airport to relieve the congestion at O'Hare Airport. Peotone was proposed as a possible location for the third airport, but it has met with much controversy. Arguments for the pro can be found here, while arguments against can be found at here (as well as many others on both sides). Meanwhile, I sat southeast of town, 200 meters from the dashpoint in my toasty warm car on a 19°F (-7°C) day ready to dash the 100 meters into cornfield stubble to score the hit. The terra server pictures (and MapQuests' color satellite picture) don't lie. This is smack in the middle of the field. Had it been summer, getting a good lock in the middle of shoulder-height corn would have been quite difficult. I ran to 98 meters, snapped the photo of my GPS and the surrounding area, and took the scenic drive back home.

Great Village of the Maramek Cache by TwoCampers N 41° 38.255 W 088° 32.542 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 1/21/2002 Hunter: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I was never sold on virtual caches. The last one I had tried (Island Refuge) was dismal and extremely boring. This one was frought with intrigue! As I pulled up to the parking spot, I noticed another vehicle in the exact coordinates for the suggested parking. "Ah, another cacher on the trail!". I was able to follow these gargantuan footsteps in hiking boots through the freshly fallen snow right along the path that was described on the page. I was even mentally talking to the person just ahead of me ("Why did you take this way? This was is a lot easier?" and "Thanks for finding that easier way down the ravine!"). The long hike was well worth it, but I was woefully unprepared for the journey - only wearing sneakers and jeans. The spot was easy enough to find, and I wouldn't discourage out-of-shape hikers from finding this cache as TwoCampers did. When I got to the final spot, I saw TourEZ next to the solution stone and shouted, "Hey! Geocacher!" That got his attention and we talked for a while, and walked back following his (and my overlaying) tracks. Great fun meeting a cacher in the wild, and a fabulous cache. I think the best part of this cache however was the narrative history that TwoCampers sent as a result of my finding the cache. Here's a link to that article. What a great piece of history!

Young Lyon by Two Campers & Bspeng N 41° 38.345 W 088° 24.941 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 1/26/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew and Sam

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Friday morning, Mrs. Markwell was watching the weather report and said, “Do you want to go Geocaching this weekend?” With me, that's always a rhetorical question, but it was going to be 60°F in the middle of January in Chicago. How could I not?!? Unfortunately, the Mrs.'s back was a little sore, so she couldn't go out with us on a hunt today, so I chose the more rugged of the two for me and the boys to tackle. I had read the log by Ron L from November where he indicated that he parked in a spot that he knew of that was closer to the cache, but he regretted it. I had considered parking in that same spot (Van Emmon Road), but I'm glad I didn't. Cache was a good walk, taking me out on a very nice path, down a great stairway into a ravine (would that all ravines had stairs like these! Sammy needed to pick up a little walking stick just the size for a two-year-old, but at each opportunity he found, he would stop on the path and “trade-up,” effectively delaying our arrival at the cache site. We also had a problem once we got to the cache area (within 100 feet) that Sammy's slow movements played havoc on the directional abilities of the GPS, so I flicked out my new trusty compass. Once I headed north, the GPS zeroed right out on the cache site. Picked up the Pez dispenser (since it shouldn't have been in there anyway), a bubble blower and a little star puzzle for Sammy, and left my out Compilation CD: Classical Geocaching. Took the other path out - great walk - but our boots and shoes were caked with about five pounds of mud each. Good hike and fabulous forest preserve only 10 miles from my house.

For Mud

Starting off on the hike - note the mud about 5 feet in front of Drew.

Stairs in a ravine. What will they think of next?

Sam finds a stick.

Thank you for caching. Please remove all shoes before entering the vehicle.

Bridge A La Cache by tstoll N 41° 38.931 W 088° 03.806 Difficulty: Terrain: Trial One: 1/27/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Sherry, Drew and Sam

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

60° on a Sunday in January in Chicago. Unbelievable. We went the exact opposite way of our cache hunt yesterday. While that one was almost exactly 10 miles west of home, this one is almost exactly 10 miles east of home. The Mrs. and the two boys decided to head out on this hunt together, although she was a little trepidatious considering recent back ailments. She was deathly afraid of slipping in the mud and gave an "out" for herself if things got snarky. But such was not the case. We found the cache in relatively short time with the lack of foliage and the mostly dry ground. The cache is in an area that in the summer =time is surely a swamp with heavy tree cover. An ingenious design of pulley system held the cache high up in a tree. The boys traded out dinosaurs, but the CDs we wanted to leave we had wanted to leave were forgotten in the car. However, even if we had remembered them, the orafice to the jar was too small for CDs. Great cache hunt. We got back to the car just as the sun was setting completely, leaving it pretty dark - the same as yesterday's hunt.

For Mud

Starting off on the hike with Sherry taking pictures.

Drew and Zurg at the cache site. It's getting dark!

January 2002 Statistics

	This Month	Cummulative
Tried Caches	3	53	not counting the Beverly cache
Found Caches	3	43	not counting the Beverly cache
Dashes	4	16
Placed Caches	0	7
Hitchhikers Released	1	7

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