Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
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January 2003

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD19-BYYZ Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.7501° W 087.9935° Date Found: 1/2/2003 1:41 pm Hunters: Kelly Downers Grove, IL - West of Chicago 14.24 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Lunchtime in Suburbia Gotta love the first of the month. That's when you can get to those dashpoints that are so close to home or work that you can drive there without any problems. A lunchtime dash to Fairview and 75th street - and with interstate travel (from I-88 to I-355 to the 75th street exit) it only took me 20 minutes of my lunch hour to get out there. The dashpoint is in someone's backyard, but within scoring range, was the Marquette (?) Baptist Church and a little road to the north that is a back-door access to the strip-mall to the north of the point. I was able to score as close as 17.5 meters from Fairview, and the access road to the north got me within 18 meters.

Prairie Recovery by Cliff_nuts N 41° 48.741 W 088° 05.391 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 1/8/2003 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

This is my exact log for the cache - with icons added. I am the luckiest man on the face of this planet. With 50° weather, how could I turn down the closest unfound cache to my office? So I set off on my lunch hour with Topo Map, Satellite Image and Cache Page in hand for this cache. Man - that parking suggestion and distance seems a little far. I wonder if that path to the west of the cache has an open gate and the Arboretum only charges for cars? I turn north on to the road that skirts the west of the park. Success! I am the luckiest man on earth! The gate is open and there's ample parking in the subdivision to the west (and no "no parking" signs either). I'm only 0.23 miles from the cache and things are looking great. I missed the path so I had to take the long way to the first marker, but no worries. Do my calculations and I'm off to the next part. Ooooh - dang it! I took the long way around again. I ended up back where I started. What about this path? OK - I'm on the right track. I'm the luckiest man around. <<>> - this is great! OK - find the cache box - sign the book - me and Geogil! - cool. Didn't bring tradable items, but there are plenty of cool things. Replace everything and start on my way back to the car. Here's where it gets fun: Get to the gate. No. No-No-No-No-No-No-No-No-No-No-No!!!! The seven foot chain link fence and gate are LOCKED!!! The way I got in, I CAN'T GET OUT!!!! I'm locked in! I'm 0.18 miles from my car, but I can't get to it!!! I've already used up 30 minutes of my lunch hour. Cell phone? DANG! In my car. Wait - there was a parking lot. Maybe I can flag someone. There's a station wagon leaving. Run after it. They didn't see me. So I followed the "outbound" traffic path praying that someone would be outbound. The next car comes by about 3 minutes into my walk. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I put out the old "hitchhiker thumb" followed by a pleading-prayer-folding-of-hands, and the guy offers assistance. Once I'm in the car, I tell him my plight of coming in the now locked gate. He is quite sympathetic (and never asks what I was doing there other than walking). He drives the 2.57 (out of the park, south on 53 to Warrenville Road, west to Leask Road and then north to my car) and I'm back in my car 45 minutes after I left the office. Just enough time for some Buona Beef and back to the office. I am the luckiest man on the face of this planet. =============== Addendum: I realized that I shouldn't have gone in to this cache the way I did. To make ammends, the following Wednesday, I returned to the Arboretum and entered through the front gate, paying my $3. I then went to the visitor's center and donated an additional $7 (the full price of admission on any day other than Wednesday). I then went back to the cache site and signed the log book again, apologizing for my error. The final steps: I changed my original "found it" () to a note (), and re-logged my find.

Fish out of Water by bspeng N 41° 49.512 W 088° 19.233 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 1/11/2003 Hunters: Kelly (Drew, Sam, Sherry*)

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

* I say that Sherry, Drew and Sam were hunters only in the respect that they were with my when I got out of the care into the frigid 10°F day. On the first single digit day of the 2002-2003 winter, I decide that while we're out and about, I might as well find a Geocache. I hopped out of the car and quickly walked the 0.25 miles to get to the spot. The most eventful portion of the hike was the fact that all of the Canadian Geese in North America were on the river trying to stay warm. As I snapped a twig with my feet while walking, the alarm rose throughout the whole flock. Geese honked at me from miles around. My wife could clearly hear the geese over the FRS, but also soon heard the spreading alarm all the way back to the car! Ah well. Got to the coordinates and searched for about 20 minutes in sub-freezing temperatures (would I be the first finder?), with no luck. Lots of places to hide the cache and some places that COULD hide a cache. However with most of those, any sane person who wanted the cache back wouldn't hide it there. I'll be back another day. My wife loves the Scout Store.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD19-BYUD Terra Server Picture from LostOutdoors.com Coordinates: N 41.6197° W 088.5680° Date Tried: 1/18/2003 2:34 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew Near Yorkville, West of Chicago 17.56 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Illinois Game Code, Section 75 You never know exactly what you're going to find on a dash hunt. On one of the coldest days so far (12°F, -11°C) and windchill making it significantly colder, this was the day that my son's Boy Scout District decided to have its annual Winter Outing. Sled hills, poultry bowling, scout dog sled races, etc., but it was so cold my son only wanted to stay for about 30-45 minutes. Afterward, we were off for a nice long drive to our second of two easily accessible dashpoints this month (first one already visited). MS Streets and Trips shows that this one is only 102 yards (close enough to 100 meters for government work) to the road, so that I should have been able to score this as a drive-by. The map was wrong. From the north/south road, I stopped at the closest spot to the west (with the GPS showing exactly 90° bearing) - and the distance to the point showed 130 meters. OK - a short hop of 30 meters shouldn't be too bad. Except that there's a sign: "No Trespassing Licensed Shooting Preserve Area Subject to Illinois Game Code, Section 75. Trespassers Subject to Arrest" I guess I won't be scoring this one today. Glad that I didn't have to get out of the car and hoof the 30 meters. I took a picture of the falling-down sign to remember the wording, but it's not really worth posting. So, unless something significant happens, I'm done for January. 0 points. ======================= A side note: This dashpoint was only 0.95 miles from a cache (Col. Bogey's Cache - GC653D) that I had previously found on September 4, 2002. There are three other three-point dashpoints and cache-find combinations that were in closer proximity with the same criteria: Splish Splash (GC2EB7) which I found on 2/18/2002 is 0.34 miles from GD08-03981 which I the same day GD08-03981 was also only 0.74 miles from A Bridge Too Far (GC2E4A) which I also found on 2/18/2002 Drury Lane Theater (GC153E) which I found on 8/8/2001 is 0.80 miles from GD12-BYYL which I found on 6/3/2002

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Last Updated:
Wenesday, February 1, 2003 17:00 CST