Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
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May 2002

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD11-BYWA Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.7884° W 087.9591° Date Found: 5/1/2002 Hunters: Kelly West of Chicago: Clarendon Hills, IL 17.18 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Title: Lunchtime Dash Only 9 miles from my work, I decided to hit this drive-by dash on my lunch hour. Oddly enough, I had just driven by this exact spot on April 18. Clarendon Hills, IL, is one of those non-descript suburbs that has grown to its city limits, as have all of the surrounding suburbs, thus creating one vast suburbia of ever connecting villages. There are a couple of major thoroughfares that cross all of the towns, and at this particular village, the main commuter rail train passes through on its way into Chicago. Just to the south of the railway runs 55th street, a major straight East-West two-lane road that crosses many of these suburbs. About a mile east of 55th and Cass lies a little side street called Virginia Avenue. Sure enough the dashpoint rests squarely on the house that resides at the corner. A little brown house, that's having it's front bay windows redone. I was able from Virginia Street to get within 7 meters (using my new WAAS enabled GPS - heheh). Pictures will be uploaded soon. Bill, down the street, had just hit a hole-in-one at Pebble Beach and had a sign in his yard to prove it. I finished my lunch hour with a great BBQ sandwich at the Country House Restaurant about 3 blocks to the east.

Just a Stones Throw Away by bspeng N 41° 41.262 W 088° 20.662 Difficulty: Terrain: First Try: 5/5/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Sherry, Drew and Sam

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Wow. The park seemed to end and I felt reasonably uncomfortable with the rottweilers at the fence. This felt dangerously like trespassing. All that - and we scoured the area and couldn't find it. [Jr fcrag n terng qrny bs gvzr nebhaq n snyyra gerr], but with no success. I'm going to e-mail the cache hider and see if he can verify it's presence. However, it was a VERY pretty hike.

Dandelion Wishes.

Sam taking a break.

Fun With Concrete by bspeng N 41° 44.941 W 088° 17.034 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 5/5/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Found it. Quite a bizarre artistic statement. This would never fly past the covenants in my subdivision. My wife said: “I’m just glad I don’t live next door.” I agree. I'll post something a little more artistic on the cache page.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD11-BYTU Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.2588° W 088.3126° Date Found: 5/5/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Sam and Drew Farmland: about 60 miles SW of Chicago 26.90 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Title: The Narrowing Reed A quick dash on a Sunday afternoon. Down I-55 to the Reed Road exit. This starts off as a nice wide-shouldered, blacktop road. Heading west from I-55, after about 2 miles, it turns into a paved road with no shoulder as it cuts a straight path through freshly planted farm fields. Another mile and it turns into a gravel road. The dashpoint is 50 meters north of Reed Road, apparently in the front yard of a farmhouse with a very ambitious Australian Shepherd dog. The farm also had two or three horses in a fenced area and about 20 Welsh Pigmi Llama going “Baaaaaa.” Photo of the house will be uploaded momentarily.

In The Shadow Of A Giant by The Geomancers N 41° 55.965 W 088° 25.074 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 5/7/2002 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I had the day off from work to recouperate from a lack of sleep and I decided to do head toward a dashpoint, and see what a particular cache was like on the way. Turns out that I only hit the cache. This was a classic geocache: parking in a local forest preserve, hikes along the path to get you within about 200 feet of the cache and a real poser at the end. Couple that with the GIANT found nearby, and it made for a very interesting cache. Good news: Geomancers are using the Dark Side of the Force, as this is definitely NOT where the usual caches are hidden (and there's a GREAT typical spot nearby).

Flowering Trees.

More Flowering Trees.

Where's the Giant?.

See it yet?.

This thing is HUGE. That's my GPS on the trunk.

My Ninth Cache! Not counting the Photographer’s Caches Chicago Style: Temporary Cache by Markwell N 41° 34.228 W 088° 11.103 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Placed: 5/11/2002 Hider: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I got an e-mail from Jennifer, the coordinator of the Spring 2002 Cache Bash in which she asked if I would supply some “Chicago Trinkets” for a cache to be placed at the event. Rather than relying on my instincts as to what was “Chicago-ish”, I opened it up to others to place trinkets in this cache without taking anything out. The cache will be archived on Monday, May 20, at which point I'll retrieve the contents and ship them off to Jennifer. Something a little different, but still kinda fun. I just hope the cache didn't get swept away in all the flooding we've had the last couple of days.

Just a quick passing fancy: NGS Survey Markers. Geocaching.com incorporated a new game searching for NGS Survey Markers, and is previewing it to Charter Members. I tried it out for about a week, finding and reporting on 3 disks. I don't think this type of hunt is for me, although I find it incredibly interesting. It also gives you a fun calibration exercise for your receiver, and is a good training ground for true caches. Here are the three I've marked:

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD11-BYYZ Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.4659° W 087.6355° Date Found: 5/25/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam and Rachi Steger, Illinois, due south of Chicago 33.06 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

A drive-by to be sure, this one was straight south of Chicago, right near the intersection of I-57 and I-80, in the town of Steger. I was able (according to my GPS) to be within 5.75 meters while sitting at the intersection of Route 1 (Chicago Street) and 36th Avenue. Ironic that just to the north, and well within scoring range, was Kelly Tires.

Plundered Cache! The Hall of Justice Sure enough - a couple of unsuccessful visits, and a revisit by me and the fam confirmed that the cache is indeed plundered. I will endeavor to replaces it in the upcoming weeks. My wife suggested a little better hiding spot - more difficult to get to, but has the same coordinates. May take that route.

Best Cache by a Dam Site! by TwoCampers N 41° 38.377 W 088° 31.621 Difficulty: Terrain: First Try: 5/26/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Sherry, Drew and Sam

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

We went out hunting for this one after determining that The Hall of Justice was indeed plundered. Nice hike, good area. Wife is deathly afraid of ticks and the grass on the nearest side of the creek was about elbox high on me (eye high to 6yo). After figuring out we were on the wrong side of the creek, we decided to call it a day with two very whiny kids. We'll be back another time!

Appleseed #1 by The Geomancers N 41° 58.224 W 088° 15.651 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 5/27/2002 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I had a chance to go flying with a buddy of mine from work, and we left out of DuPage Airport in a Piper Cherokee (flew around to DeKalb and returned). Having a little extra time and being so close, I couldn't pass up a Geocache. Didn't park at the suggested coordinates, but found an entrance about a quarter-mile away, so parked there and had a nice little stroll on foot.

Markwell at the yoke.

Actually, this is from Gary’s Kish Cache. We flew over it on our flight.

Cool Tree, but what a spoiler.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD11-BYBO Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.2805° W 089.7099° Date Found: 5/31/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Sherry, Drew and Sam Near Kewanee, IL 80.65 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

"Newbie Dash" We hopped off of I-80 and promptly started negotiating the grid of north-south and east-west roads, while running in to the occassional dead end. The town closest to the dashpoint was Buda, Illinois (hence my earlier mistake in the quick post). Buda has a population of 600 and bosts that Preston James was the 400 meter track winner for the State of Illinois in both 2000 and 2001. The LostOutdoors.com satellite photo placed this squarely on a farmstead, possibly in a rough area by a stream. As we finally approached the farmhouse, we saw an elderly woman sitting in the car, a younger woman (her daughter?) in about her mid-50s getting groceries out of the hatchback, and a teacup poodle walking the driveway, doing its best to intimidate us. My skeptical wife said, “How are you going to explain this?” No problem. I approached her and said I had a slightly bizzare request: I was on a scavenger hunt for latitude and longitude coordinates and need to get within 100 meters of this spot on this map, by using my GPS. She made a sound like a trumpet player buzzing in his mouthpiece and said, “Sure, I don't care. You can park yonder and get closer, but watch out! There's cock-a-burrs all over that place.” Turns out, my son and I just needed to walk her rows of 1˝" tall corn seedlings to reach the dashpoint. Yes, another farm field. But there were HILLS - something we don't have in Illinois. Where we parked the car was also right next to the fenced in area where a brand new horsie was trotting along side his momma horsie. Very precious.

Mind the Trail by Neil, Joe, Mike, and Tim N 41° 19.540 W 089° 52.854 Difficulty: Terrain: Found: 5/31/2002 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

What a great hike. We finally found where we needed to be by driving around the southern, easter and northern edge of the park, only to find the entrance in the west. Once in, we found the intended starting path and took to it right away. Sammy ended up on my shoulders for a good portion of the hike, but it was good to stretch our legs after being in the car for so long. The path diverged at one point and we took the left path. It got us there with no problem (although we returned on the right-hand path without doing as much vertical work). The final point where we were 35 feet from the cache, I told my wife and youngest: “Hold on. It's right over there,” and it was. Cool park, and the Mrs. says we are definitely coming back to camp here.

Mom and Two Younger Markwells

Dad and Two Younger Markwells

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD11-BUSY Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.4774° W 090.6840° Date Found: 5/31/2002 Hunters: Kelly Southwest of Davenport, Iowa 127.42 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

"Failed, Thank God!" Thinking we were going to be the first dash in Iowa (not knowing about Jack Frickey's old Iowa dashes), we booked it over to 11BUSY. The maps showed it to be 5 miles off the I-280 bypass and a driveby. What the maps didn't show was that it was in the Scott Area Sanitary Waste Landfill. Luckily, the gates were closed. Seriously though, had the gates been open this would have been a driveby as the dashpoint was only 300 meters from the locked gates (see Pics with the warning signs).

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Last Updated: Monday, June 3, 2002 10:45 CDT