Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
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November 2004

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-CACA Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.5982° W 088.0540° State: Illinois Date Found: 11/5/2004 9:29 am Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Wags State Street, Lockport, IL 9.58 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: State Street - That Great Street After dropping off my younger son at Preschool, I left with Wags the Geodog and my older son Drew for a romp to our closest and easiest dashpoint CACA {{insert Beavis and Butthead laughter here}}. The point was an easy drive of only about 10 miles to downtown Lockport, Illinois, a town claiming its fame as one of the major outlets for the Illinois and Michigan Canal (get it? Lock, Port). The point was actually just north of the main road from Plainfield to Lockport (Renwick Road) on State Street. Unfortunately, it's not connected except by name to the State Street of Chicago fame. The point was easily scorable near one of my wife's favorite shops: Stamp Thyme - a store selling rubber stamps and ink pads. 3 easy points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-BYYX Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.2475° W 088.4334° State: Illinois Date Tried: 11/5/2004 10:31 am Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Wags Farm Field Outside Mazon, IL 29.30 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: What a Ride! One of my favorite contemporary Christian singers is Peder Eide, and the title track from his one of his recent CDs is "What a Ride!" The album art pictures a dog with its head hanging out the window enjoying the ride. As Peder explains it, the dog doesn't care what the destination is. It just relishes in the fact that there's an exhuberence in travel, smelling new smells, seeing new sights. The second dash today embodied that feeling. With Wags the Geodog riding copilot, we zoomed down Route 47 from Morris after leaving the interstates, crossed the Illinois river and headed into farm country. The terra server recon showed us that this would probably be unreachable, but we decided to go for it today - with me, Wags and the older son. When we got to the point in the road where we were 470 meters west of the point, with open farm fields between us and our target, my son and I compared the aerial shot with the reality - the old railroad grade that had it been still a path would have gotten us close to the target; the powerlines cutting through the field that would have signalled our scoring range. With the cold day, and the prospect of walking a quarter-mile straight through heaving turned over black topsoil, we opted for a pass on this point. The farmhouse just to the north looked promising for finding landowners, but there were no cars in the driveway to invite us to the door. Sure we MIGHT have been able to score, but we just decided to pass, relishing in our travels and the joy of the ride. On the way back to the interstate, our retreat was slowed on the two-lane Route 47 by a large John Deere harvester, much to the joy of Drew and Wags. Pictures of all have been uploaded. 0 points for Markwell and Trailblazers “I wanna take a step like Neil Armstrong, dive as deep as Jacques Cousteau. I wanna be where the Spirit leads me, only stop when the world says, 'go.'”

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-BYVO Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.2572° W 088.7618° State: Illinois Date Found: 11/6/2004 1:20 pm Hunters: Kelly, Sam, Wags South of Marsailles, IL 38.35 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: I can see for miles and miles and miles Wow. Saphire blue skies, fall temperatures of 65°F/18°C and I'm headed for farmland again. In past dashpoints, I've visited farmland and complained that the view was nothing but flat, flat, flat, flat. But that is exactly what made this dashpoint so interesting. With an obvious "Indian Summer" day, I hopped into the car with Sam (my younger son) and Wags the Geodog. We drove I-80 (one of the great east-west Interstates crossing from New York to San Fransico, and got off at Marsailles, Illinois. After making a short stop at Illini State Park, just south of the Illinois River (and finding a new campground for our Cub Scout Pack - bsapack13.com) I continued into farm country, where the roads are laid out in perfect grids along one mile increments. Down three miles and over one, then south another mile and I was there. The dashpoint was easily scored on a non-descript gravel road, just south of a small creek's bridge, and about a third of a mile north of the farmhouse. There was actually a farmer's pickup truck parked along side the road next to the closest approach (17 meters). But when we stopped, I took Wags out of the car for a stretch and did a full 360° spin very slowly. The air was clear, and the sky was flawless and rich in blue. Offsetting the glorious sky were the alternating light and dark browns of corn fields that had been harvested: the light browns of the remaining stubble of stalks, and the deep rich dark brown of some of the world's richest topsoil. And I had the joy of being in an area where this view was the same in all directions. I remember reading once that if you were on a perfectly flat plain with no topographical changes or obstructions, your view to the horizon is about 12 miles. I easily saw 12 miles in all directions today. Thanks for getting me and the boy out. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-BYUQ Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.6150° W 088.9548° State: Illinois Date Found: 11/6/2004 2:17 pm Hunters: Kelly, Sam, Wags Farmland, Earlville, IL - far far West of Chicago 37.51 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Farmland for Auction After visiting GD41-BYVO, we continued north through Illinois farm country, enjoying the magnificent day with the windows open and a light dust from the remaining harvesters stinging my eyes. The only thing marring our trip is the realization that Wags, the Geodog, gets motion sickness. I've tried to deny it, to accommodate for it, but there's nothing but the truth: this dog can't handle log car rides. I had prepared for this possibility after having her "lose it" a couple times on Friday, and today was somewhat better, but Wags the Geodog may be restricted in the future to Geocaching at local spots rather than Geodashing on long car rides. Anyway, the dashpoint lies just north of Earlville, Illinois, which boasts of one of the few remaining drive-in movie theaters left in Illinois (unfortunately, they've chosen to show horro movies like Exorcist and The Resurrection 3 (but maybe that was just for Halloween). We got to the farmland spot that I knew held the dashpoint, and I readied my trusty explanation note - as I knew from my recon that I would have a short walk onto the farmland to score. As luck would have it, the house itself was abandonded and an estate sale/auction sign was posted in the yard. Also, the house and the yard itself were in a terrible state of disrepair. I knew that no one was currently living there. Since all I had was 85 meter walk to reach scoring range, I grabbed Wags and Sam (my younger) and we walked along the edge of the fence of the backyard of the house through the harvested cornfield to the north. We reached the magic circle at the back northwest corner of the property lot. We had an uneventful, but still breathtaking trip home with the mid-fall setting sun in my rearview mirrors. Thanks for getting us out on this wonderful fall day. 3 points for Markwell and Trailablazers

YASWK by GeoRon N 41° 40.369 W 088° 23.434 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 11/6/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Sam, Wags

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Tried to surmount the rolling hills with Wags and Sam, but ran out of time and daylight.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-BYQO Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 42.5386° W 089.2522° State: Wisconsin Date Found: 11/13/2004 8:50 am Hunters: Kelly, Ryan the Pilot Country Road near Beloit, Wisconsin 81.11 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Dashing into Fall: Winter Flight, Part 1 Ryan the Pilot and I were talking in the end of October and we agreed that November would be another good month for a set of fly-by dashpoints. After scopin out all of the possible routes, we decided on a northern route through Wisconsin. The trick was finding a day that matched Ryan's description of good flying in November: "one of those crisp clear days slightly on the cool side." Saturday, Nov 13 fit the bill, with a chilling wind, but not a cloud in the sky. 137 feet altitude, 45 m in 3D. It was kind of nice having lppd841's description on this one. The light brown tint of the quarry was pretty evident as we approached. All we needed to do was parallel the road on the side with the farmhouse (and get low enough), and we'd score. The real hard thing with the fly-by method of scoring dashpoints is that as you slow down to come in low, you're still going about 105-110 mph - and you have to watch the GPS to see if you need minor course corrections. So when you're actually VISITING the point you don't see it, but as you approach and then upon departure it's pretty easy to see any landscape around. Since lppd841 has already hit this one, it's 2 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-BYSU Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 43.0852° W 089.1329° State: Wisconsin Date Found: 11/13/2004 9:11 am Hunters: Kelly, Ryan the Pilot Farmland Near Madison, Wisconsin 109.80 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Dashing into Fall: Winter Flight, Part 2 154 feet altitude, 61 m in 3D This was actually a LOT of fun. It was like dive bombing. From the terra server recon, we knew that there was an island of trees in the middle of this farmfield that was a beautiful landmark to gauge our success (take a look at the terra server images to see what I mean). That island was easily spotted about a mile and a half out, and we just aimed for the southwest corner to score. I had Ryan swing back around to get a good photo of the island. Otherwise, this is open farmland, freshly harvested with the same light brown stubble as I reported last weekend. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-BYUS Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 43.1275° W 088.8797° State: Wisconsin Date Found: 11/13/2004 9:18 am Hunters: Kelly, Ryan the Pilot Open Farmland in Wisconsin, just west of the Crawfish River 107.81 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Dashing into Fall: Winter Flight, Part 3 314 feet altitude, 97 m in 3D Again, another nice landmark to line up our targetting: the Crawfish River is pretty wide at this point, and there's a little area of a large lake to the northeast of the point. We flew at this one from the west to the east, and had really no trouble getting down to the required minimum height. It was actually pretty cool that my display on my GPS said 0.00 meters (I rarely do that even in a CAR), but the TRACK LOGS indicated 20.27 meters, so that's what I'll claim. An interesting nearby feature is the little hill to the southeast of the point across the river. With the flat flat flat farmland all around, this sticks up almost like one of the rocky mountains in Colorado (even though the elevation is only about 50-75 feet over the rest of the plain). On top of the hill rests a little cabin. Proabably choice real estate around here. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-BYYN Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 43.4517° W 088.5555° State: Wisconsin Date Found: 11/13/2004 9:35 am Hunters: Kelly, Ryan the Pilot Marshland near Horicon, Wisconsin 126.07 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Dashing into Fall: Winter Flight, Part 4 260 feet altitude, 98 m in 3D This point actually had some very interesting features from the air and the ones that I'll shar the most pictures on. There were two windfarm towers only about 2 miles from the point. I haven't seen those around here since GD26-BYOW in August of 2003. There were only two windmills here, and from the air, the looked like a pair of pinwheels from a kid's party just stuck in the ground. The actual point lies in the middle of a marshy piece of land just northwest of a large gravel pit and east of a church with a cemetery. Evidently there is some type of man-made drainage ditch running straight north/south through the marsh that shows up on the topos and the aerial shots, again making the "line up" easy. We circled once and then came in from the south to the north, pulling up as soon as we hit the point. Just to the north there is a large hill that appears to be a sealed landfill. There was also a sewage treatment plant just to the north as well. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-BYYZ Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 43.7512° W 088.4004° State: Wisconsin Date Found: 11/13/2004 9:47 am Hunters: Kelly, Ryan the Pilot Southeast of Fon Du Lac, Wisconsin 145.93 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Dashing into Fall: Winter Flight, Part 5 295 feet altitude, 95 m in 3D This point was the most doubtful for our trip, as there were residential areas being built from the 1998 B/W aerial shots that terra server uses. But we decided to try it anyway and see what we could get. Fortunately, it appears that they are building and interstate bypass around Fon Du Lac right where the dashpoint lies. There was no construction of any type going on (it was Saturday) so we swooped down over the southbound lane just beside the curve that would take it to the west, and scored. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-CAFY Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 44.1670° W 087.8848° State: Wisconsin Date Found: 11/13/2004 10:09 am Hunters: Kelly, Ryan the Pilot Farmfield near Manitowac, Wisconsin 175.27 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Dashing into Fall: Winter Flight, Part 6 252 feet altitude, 80 m in 3D THIS one is the one that I was most interested in for this trip. It shows differently on the topo maps than it does on the aerial photography image and the Streets and Trips. Apparently the topo maps are off, as it is indeed closer to the road than the topo maps show from Terra Server. The patch of land actually still had unharvested corn (what's he WAITING for?!?), and we had a tricky time avoiding some power lines to the east, and the silo of the farmhouse to the direct south. We approached from the south and turned due northwest after the silo to come in for final approach. Scored and went on to our next dashpoint, which would be the easiest and most familiar score of this trip. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-CAAM Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 42.9929° W 088.2783° State: Wisconsin Date Found: 11/13/2004 11:10 am Hunters: Kelly, Ryan the Pilot Waukesha, Wisconsin 93.30 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Dashing into Fall: Winter Flight, Part 7 (driveby) This was the last of the points from our fly-around turn of Wisconsin. That's right campers: Waukesha, Wisconsin, home of the very first flying for Markwell back on GD36-CABI. We had scoped this one out and found that it was a very nice little drive-by, and we knew that the airport had a very nice courtesy car. So we flew in and landed the plane and had them top off the left wing's fuel while we took the car into town. The point is in an industrial park complex just south of the railroad, and we easily scored from the road, but I insisted on trying to find out exactly which business held the point. Ryan was driving, and we turned into a construction distribution company to the north - ooops. That wasn't the right business. It was the one to the south. We pulled in (saw a very nice old rambler vehicle of some type from the 50s or 60s - the predecessor to the SUV) and came within 18 meters while driving. The point is in an "available" warehouse-type building, just across the street from Badger Construction. 3 DRIVEBY points for Markwell and Trailblazers Total for the Trip: 7 dashpoints, all scored, one previously - 20 points

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-CAFA Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 42.1592° W 087.9255° State: Illinois Date Found: 11/16/2004 10:11 am Hunters: Kelly Chevy Chase Golf Club, Buffalo Grove, IL 38.94 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Not Ready for Prime Time Golf As some of you know from eariler conversations, I'm the handbell director at my church. Turns out we've had a donation to purchase a set of hand chimes to augment our instruments, and I needed to contact and survey the two vendors. One vendor is coming to our rehearsal this Saturday, but the other vendor lives in the northern suburbs of Chicago - and hey - there's a dashpoint nearby. Just off of where I-294 and I-94 join is the boundary of Lake and Cook Counties, marked by Lake-Cook Road. I exited the interstate highway and traveled over to route 45, a well used thoroughfare. This brought me EXTREMELY close to the Chevy Chase Country Club (hence my subtitle for this dashpoint), and I turned in to the apartment complex to the north of the golf course. I drove up to the parking areas for one of the buildings and easily scored at 36 meters. While there was a short path that would have gotten me closer (maybe to 20 meters), I wouldn't be able to reach ground zero without climbing the 6 foot chainlink fence creating the perimeter of the golf course. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Diverse City Prairie by Arctura N 42° 13.364 W 088° 18.954 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 11/16/2004 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Tried to find this little semi-urban micro in a little bike path. No luck. The little ring that composes this area appears to be made up of rough-hewn limestone slabs, and there could have been any number of places for this to hide. Since I was passing through on a whim, I doubt that I'll be back to try and find this one.

Westward Bound by McGeo N 42° 14.330 W 088° 22.649 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 11/16/2004 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I LOVE old, big trees, and this one seemed to be calling me. An old willow alongside a riverbank - and a little old bridge. I'm not sure if it's camo'd in the tree, or near/under the bridge. I had a great time looking for this one, though, and climbing all over the tree.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD41-BYUJ Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 42.3003° W 089.0163° State: Illinois Date Found: 11/16/2004 2:16 pm Hunters: Kelly Near Rock Valley Community College, Rockford, IL 60.80 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Second Place, But Still 2 Points While this one was already scored by llpd841, I decided that since I had the day, I would use it. I was already on the north side of Chicago, so I ventured over to Rockford and grabbed this easy little driveby. It is within trebuchet distance of the Rock Valley Community College, but not right on the front lawn. The point lies in the front yard of a white ranch house on Woodie Ranch Drive. Pictures will be uploaded later tonight. 2 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Geo-Golf Course Completed Course: GGAANX Course Radius: 12.1 Center: 41.7067, -88.1909 Total Strokes: 44 11/8/2004 - 11/16/2004 GeoGolf is an offshoot of Geodashing, which uses randomly generated points. Geo-Golf utilizes a denser course of 18 “holes” - randomly generated points on the earth's surface radiating from a central point of the player's choosing and within a desired radius. The closer you are to the actual spot, the lower your score. Driving Competition Course. In mid-October I proposed a driving competition where the Geo-Golfers would request similar courses and get as close as they can WITH THEIR CAR. No hiking into the forests. This is my course for the event.

#21 Advance to Go, Collect $200 by Greenback N 41° 47.880 W 088° 05.803 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 11/29/2004 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I was starting to feel bad. So far this month, I've tried 3 caches and came up empty with each. So I just HAD to go out and find what was labeled a simple one. Found it. Although I didn't really like the placement, as there was a marker on the back of the sign that this was magnetized to indicating that there was a $200 fine for defacing the sign. I guess we're not really defacing it, but I wonder if a judge would agree. Found it on my lunch hour, and that makes 285.

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Last Updated:
November 29 2004 16:30 CST