Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
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April 2002

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD10-BYWO Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.8924° W 088.2602° Date Found: 4/1/2002 Hunters: Kelly Far West Suburb, Just South of DuPage Airport 17.35 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Title: If you had been playing darts... This was an unbelievable dashpoint as far as the location. Not that it was pristine or gorgeous; I just couldn't believe I could get there! As I approached the Southern end of DuPage County Airport (my brother used to be an Air Traffic Controller up there before he moved on to O'Hare), I noticed the Prairie Landing Golf Course was going to be right where the dashpoint was. This wasn't going to be easy. I looked and the high chain link fence surrounding the man-made downs that littered the course only to be heartily discouraged. Finally, I parked next to the delivery entrance to the Pillsbury Plant and hopped some train tracks, only to have my GPS tell me I was 120 meters from the point. I hopped back in my car and cruised along parallel to the N-S fence and then I spotted salvation: an opening in the fence with a trail down the middle. I parked the car at a nearby pumping station and crossed the tracks again and read the large sign: “DuPage Valley Trail” complete with maps. This trail went right toward the dashpoint, with chain link fences on either side, warning trail hikers that this was a “Restricted Area, No Admittance.” However, the trail took me almost precisely where I needed to go - as I got within 8.37 meters of the dashpoint. .

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD10-BYTA Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.6879° W 088.6275° Date Found: 4/6/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam and Rachi North of Sandwich, IL - Somewhere in the western farmland of Chicago 20.78 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Title: The Conversation “Dad, are we going to hunt one of those imaginary flags again?” “No. This is a dashpoint.” “Is that where you walk out in the middle of a farmer’s field and walk back again?” “Most of the time, yes.” “Can I wait in the car? I don’t want to get my new hiking boots dirty.” “Um - yea.” ================ “Dad, why do you keep turning the car around?” “The map says there’s a road around here that will take us to 160 meters from the dashpoint. I just can’t see it.” “What about that road?” “Um - yea. That’s it.” ================ “Dad, how are you going to get past that fence?” “I don’t know. I’ll get as close as I can first.” “Couldn’t you use that spot where the bush fell across the fence?” “Um - yea. I’ll be right back.” ================ “Dad, did you find it?” “Um - yea.” “How close did you get?” “97 meters.” “Anything there other than the farmer’s field?” “Um - nope.” {long pause} “Dad, can we go find a Geocache?” “Um - yea.”

Gary’s Kish Cache by Gary & Isabelle N 41° 55.744 W 088° 46.150 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/6/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Rachi

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Not a bad little cache, although I definitely could have parked closer. I parked in the nearby subdivision. Nice playground there for after the cache hunt, but it made it a ½ mile walk. I found the good parking spot on the way. ROT13 Encrypted Spoiler: cnex ng gur ryx'f pyho ba naavr tyvqqra ebnq ;-) Took bracelets, left Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote.

Two Boys and a dog logging a cache.

W-R Marsh Cache by clownsrscary N 42° 00.514 W 088° 47.658 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/6/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sherry, Rachi

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I had this pegged as the old railway when I saw how straight the path was. Very interesting use of the land. No problems finding the cache after the half-mile walk - in fact, sent my 6yo son after it. Had a lot of fun with the observation deck. Good top off to a 2 cache, 1 dash day.

Pretty day looking up at the deck.

GET YOUR KICKS ON ROUTE 66 by cachew nut N 41° 23.570 W 088° 07.008 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/7/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Rachi This is a “Locationless” Cache: the hider does not have a specific location in mind, but gives a description of the type of photo s/he wants and has people supply the coordinates. This particular one said that the spot needed to be along the historic Route 66 that transversed the US from Chicago to California. The coordinates listed above are for where (along that route) I chose to log my find.

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

“On October 3, 1999, Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery was dedicated as the 117th national cemetery within the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration. Burial operations began on October 12.” Historic Route 66 runs through my home town of Plainfield, where it runs on the same roads as the Historic East-West Lincoln Highway for a short distance. From there, Route 66 heads toward and through Joliet and picks up Route 53 to the south. I followed the path through Elwood, IL - a town that my maternal grandfather was a Methodist Minister for. I found the ancestral home and moved on down Route 53. The coordinates are for where I snapped the picture of the Historic Route 66 sign, which is just south of the Hoff Road intersection, south of Elwood. Less that half a mile off Hoff Road is the entrance to the Abraham Lincoln National VA Cemetery. It is location on an old section of the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant (Joliet Arsenal). While this may not be as historic of a Route 66 location as was intended, this national treasure is too well hidden NOT to be mentioned.

Proof at the sign.

Cemetery Entrance.

Memorial across from Cemetery Entrance.

GeoSquirt's Wandering Mowgli by Yak Man Picked up at Burlington Creek on Friday, April 12. N 41° 47.655 W 088° 05.846

I have been DYING to get my hands on a travel bug, especially with a 100+ mile trip coming up that includes some caching. Leave it to my fellow cachers to provide me with the perfect opportunity. Mowgli was placed in Burlington Creek by mkurtz on Wednesday, April 10 after picking him up on Monday, April 8 from Blarney Stone by Grampa. Now, I've been to that Burlington Creek cache sooooo many times (two unsuccessful tries, one find, and a placement of Geoffrey, the Ultimate Geocacher) that I can find Burlington Creek with my eyes closed. I didn't even have my GPS, and I quickly found it - didn't even log the cache find in the log book. Mowgli will be having some fun before heading up to Wisconsin next weekend.

Click to Enlarge

Gangster’s Final Hideaway by The Geomancers N 41° 52.130 W 087° 54.486 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/14/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Spent the day with the family and Brookfield Zoo and then to some pedestrian caches. Found the first part (Lombardo's) fairly quickly, but as I was sitting in the car signing the log book, the caretaker came by . He indicated that they were closing the cemetery (whew!) and that we needed to follow him out. After securing the coordinates for Al, I hastily threw the log back in the container and out of site of the caretaker replaced it in its hiding spot. As we drove out of the cemetery, there were about 4 police cars at the entrance/exit . We waved at the caretaker pleasantly on the way out - smiling a big midwestern “I-wasn't-doing-anything-at-all” smile, but one of the cop cars followed us out long the road. We drove as casually as possible, still wanting to get back to the main entrance to be able to log Ghost Busters, since this cemetery is supposedly haunted by the Italian Bride (see my log entry there). Luckily when we turned south on First Avenue, the friendly policeman turned north (whew!). I guess we didn't really look all that intimidating. Guess we'll have to return on another trip to finally log this as “found”. Update: Thursday, April 18 - found Capone’s resting place, updated cache to a “find.”

GHOST BUSTERS by cachew nut N 41° 51.759 W 087° 54.437 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/15/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry This is a “Locationless” Cache: the hider does not have a specific location in mind, but gives a description of the type of photo s/he wants and has people supply the coordinates. This particular was looking for Haunted locations with the internet documentation to back it up. The coordinates above were where I chose to log this cache.

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Went back to the entrance. Took a picture. Logged the site. Here's the story about the Italian Bride. Not much more to report.

Circus History by ChicagoMoe N 41° 51.031 W 087° 49.110 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/14/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Occasionally, a cache strikes our fancy with learning some local history or flavor - even though it might not be the most challenging of caches. This one definitely falls into this category. We were first struck with the sheer number of subdivided cemeteries in the area while we were driving south on DesPlaines road from Roosevelt. Then we saw the Woodlawn Cemetery and even saw the elephants mentioned on the page from Cermack Road. We were a little leery that the cemetery might be closed after we were shooed out of Mount Carmel, but the gates were wide open. The coordinates were (pardon the pun) “dead on” and I kept returning to the same spot 3 times before finding the container (a microcache). The conversation afterwards with my wife in the car was that it is definitely one thing to read about these stories, but ANOTHER to visit these places and feel the emotional attachment; “make it real.” I pity those that are logging virtual caches without going there. The website for the Showmen’s League talks about Showmen’s Rest and the tragedy of 1918. We also found it very interesting that this group has an advocacy group, let alone one with so much history. Definitely check out the website for information.

Traffic Jam by bspeng N 41° 50.982 W 087° 48.090 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/14/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

First in! Ok, this is kinda bizzare for a shopping mall. On the other hand, what a great way to bring people into a suburb that is definitely on the decline. We felt a little uncomfortable as the sun was setting, so we didn't venture out to the mall area to see the rest of the artwork like I would have wanted, but it was still interesting to say the least. To Bspeng: HOW DO YOU FIND THESE PLACES?!?

Blooper’s Holler by k9vic N 41° 48.141 W 088° 01.766 Difficulty: Terrain: First Try: 4/18/2002 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

While on the way to pick up some rented latops for Super Rally (our weekend-long spiritual retreat for high school students in the Northen Illinois Conference of United Methodist Churches), I had to wait in the area of Downers Grove for the man with the checks. I had about 30 minutes lead time, and my GPS said that the first stage of Blooper's Holler was within 3/4 of a mile. I found the place to park with little effort and even got my GPS to zero out. Unfortunately, I ran out of time before finding the first stage of the cache. I'll be back.

Geocache ID=41 by Michael Moreth N 41° 56.067 W 087° 57.512 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/22/2002 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I had come here as part of an 8 cache frenzy back in August of 2001, but didn't log it as an unfound, because after 3 minutes of walking, I was in an impenetrable wall of thorns and thickets. This time, I took a slightly different path and only had to cross a bog. Found it.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD10-BYYL Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 42.3315° W 088.0657° Date Found: 4/19/2002 Hunters: Kelly North of Chicago - Round Lake, Illinois 48.31 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Title: Target Practice On a drive up north to attend a weekend retreat with 261 high school students from the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church, I had the GPS set on “nearest waypoint.” I knew there was one in the northern Chicago area that (at least when I left) Jeremy hadn’t come down and raided. And that one, BYYL, showed up on my screen as fairly close. I checked out the maps and sat pics and found that it was very near a small airport. I was a little worried that it might be actual airport property, because I saw some odd-looking regularly-spaced structures on the sat images. When I pulled up to the area, I found that the dashpoint was in a “sporting area” and that the structures were bays for people to stand while they did skeet shooting. I'm not much of a gun-person, but I did find this quite fascinating. Since it was early on a Friday morning, there were no shooters around. The area was quite open with no fences and no “No Tresspassing” signs. But while the dashpoint was not in the target area, it was only about 150-175 meters away from the target area. As I approached scoring range by walking to the last bunker and turning north, I stepped over numerous missed clay pidgeons. I took one for a souvenier, as I never had seen one up close and personal. Finally scored the dashpoint and returned to the car without incident. There was much caching prior to the rally and one cache on the way home afterwards to place a Travel Bug in a distant land. The Rally was quite a spiritually moving experience, and a life-changing event for me and for many of the young people involved. All in all, a weekend none of us will forget. Shooting range Miles Driven: 250.74 Geocaches Found: 6 Geocaches Missed: 2 Dashpoints Found: 1 Sleep over a period of three nights from Thursday through Sunday noon: 12 hours Lives Changed by Religious Experience: 368 3 Points for Markwell 3 Points for Trailblazers

Square D by collinsorienteer N 42° 05.306 W 088° 04.427 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/18/2002 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Came across this one while continuing up to Barrington for the evening. My GPS said it was 400 feet from the road. In and out in less than 5 minutes. Cool cache for upping your find count.

Junk Pile Treasure by The Jolly Roger (jollbgood) N 42° 14.885 W 088° 06.704 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/19/2002 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I definitely did NOT take the intended path for this cache - and cut much more of a straight line. While the pine forest was neat, walking the stubbled corn of the cornfield was not. I eventually got to the right spot and proceeded into the ravine. The junk was very high and I couldn't help but think, “If I had my boys on this cache hunt, I’d be extremely nervous about them getting cut on the glass that I’m crunching with my hiking boots.” Found it in short order and on to the next one...

A Half-Buried Thresher?

Full view of the abandoned farm device.

A very cool tree. Split and huge. In the wedge of the Y is my GPS that I had to place by standing on tip-toes.

Ulysses’ Cache by Brandon and Matt N 42° 23.495 W 088° 07.684 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/19/2002 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I kept telling myself “I don’t have time for any more cache hunts - I need to get up to Lake Geneva, or I’ll be late.” I was late. This cache showed up on my radar screen, so I decided to do the 2 for 1 special of this cache and Thorney Glen (see below). This cache was not all that difficult to find, but I can see this one becoming EXTREMELY difficult once all the foliage is back.

THORNEY GLEN by TED M N 42° 23.458 W 088° 07.761 Difficulty: Terrain: First Try: 4/19/2002 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

A great hunt! Too bad it ended so badly. After finding Ulysses’ Cache which is only 350 feet away from Thorney Glen, I wandered to the other side of the trail. Finally, I came across the swamp. Frogs croaking - weeds waist high. You name it. GPS said it was 70 feet across the swamp. So after skirting the edge of the swamp for 10 minutes (each minute making my time travel to Lake Geneva even more lengthy) I finally bit the bullet and crossed the swamp - only then to be met with no discernable way to get any closer than 24-30 feet from the cache. I finally gave up for the day and squished my way back to the car, whereupon I turn over my hiking boots and literally poured out the water.

waders

Domes to Heaven by Dr Spyro N 42° 35.234 W 088° 32.250 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 4/21/2002 Hunters: Kelly

Wandering Mowgli

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I've actually been looking forward to finding this cache ever since it's original placement. George Williams College is one of the locations that we had been to with our youth when I was a Youth Group leader for our church. Now, 6 years later, I had a chance to return to GWC on staff for the Rally that we had been youth leaders for in the past. It was a wonderful weekend, leaving me physically, emotionally and spiritually drained. All that combined with 45° temps and rain made it so that the last thing I really wanted to do was cache. However, I had indicated that Mowgli would be travelling across the border, so I had to place him. I'm glad I did, as Dr Spyro's paternal tribute was definitely a restful walk through the woods - leaving me time for reflection and the quiet solitude to listen to God's voice, thus adding a new dimension to the "Domes to Heaven" reference.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD10-CAAG Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.4280° W 087.8152° Date Found: 4/27/2002 Hunters: Kelly South of Chicago - near Monee, IL 26.07 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

New Unit

Dashpoint Title: Test Drive My new Garmin 76S arrived via UPS yesterday, and I had to test drive it. So, in pouring rain with no printed off maps or webpages, I took off after checking on my plundered Hard as Pi cache. A quick jaunt past some caches that I found back in February led me to Frankfort, IL, and Route 45. After heading south of Route 30, I passed under a very bizzare large white triangle (photo to be posted later) and eventually ended up on the correct road. First pass of the dashpoint said it was 189 m north of the road on property that was clearly marked "No Trespassing". I circled around and tried again, only to find it in the next door neighbor's lot, which was also labelled "The Fence Guys, Inc." I pulled up the long driveway and watched the distance creep down to 115 meters and I pulled up to the house to get out and ask permission. Just as I did - I looked down at my new dashing-friendly GPS and it indicated 97.05 meters. No hopping out in the rain today! On the way back, I travelled Laraway Road, and stumbled across the new Chicagoland Speedway. This is a truly MASSIVE stadium out in the middle of nowhere. Unforutnately, the digital camera was dead, so no photos, but here's the website. Here's a great shot of the whole stadium. Not being a racing fan, I didn't know exactly where it was. Man, this thing is HUGE!!! Great last dash for April! Markwell

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Last Updated: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 21:00 CDT