Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
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December 2004

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD42-CAAM Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.6023° W 088.2376° State: Illinois Date Tried: 12/2/2004 5:47 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam Farmland just south of Whispering Creek, Plainfield, IL 2.81 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: So close - but not this time Tried visiting this point in the dark last night. I'm going to have to try it again on a weekend later in the month. Since this is the second closest dashpoint ever to my house, I'll be making a HUGE effort to nab it - but it lies in an plowed field. Fortunately, there's a natural gas pipeline that goes through the field and I can see not only the spot along the road where it crosses, but a junction/ventilation(?) box in the field. From the terra server green circle, if I follow that pipeline, I should get within scoring range. I figured I'd log my initial attempt first, though. Zero points for Markwell and Trailblazers(for now...) ((ADDENDUM: I never made it back to this point))

N.A.S.B. by Spyderuser N 41° 45.127 W 088° 13.980 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 12/4/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

The wife and I were out shopping and I decided I needed a "fix" - so we decided to try and hit this cache along with the golf-point nearby on my current course. Golfpoint was 16 meters (two strokes), and we didn't find the cache. Turns out from logs on Dec 5 that the cache is no longer secured to the bridge (we found the string). Cool thing was the tunnel that goes under the bridge and comes out on the west side - right near where this concrete embankment is that my son and I found in July of 2002 for Park Ridge Trail (GC6F6F). Wish I had my waders.

Is There an Echo in Here ????? by Hockey19 N 41° 44.172 W 088° 10.031 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/9/2004 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

OK - I found the micro. A pill bottle on the trail in the forest preserve. The owner received the pill bottle from a seedling cache. Unfortunately, this is just the kind of cache I was thinking about when I made this post to the Geocahing discussion forum. With all of the great rocks around that were cleared out for making the tunnel, this would have been a WONDERFUL spot for a traditional sized cache.

Geo-Golf Course Completed Course: GGAAON Course Radius: 12.1 Center: 41.7067, -88.1909 Total Strokes: 37 11/18/2004 - 12/10/2004 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. I liked my Driving Competition Course so much, I decided to do a regular version.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD42-CACK Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.9636° W 088.0306° State: Illinois Date Found: 12/11/2004 2:04 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam Intersection of I290 and I355 24.40 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Arrow Electronics Parking A mighty cold day in December and the wife with a party to head to (oddly not a holiday party, but one of those "selling" parties for jewelry), and I took the opportunity to try out some new electronic equipment. I recently acquired an older laptop, and was eager to try the hookup of the GPS to MS Streets and Trips for live scrolling of the maps. The system worked just great, and I enjoyed glancing over at stoplights and seeing exactly where I was - coupled with all of the dash and cache information scrolling by. Very cool The dashpoint itself is the closest drive-by this month. I-290 is one of the spurs of interstate 90 that runs through Chicago from the east to the west, and the north end of I-355, a recent addition to the Chicago portion of Interstate system and the Illinois Tollway Authority. After paying my $1 in tolls, the point was a simple exit on Lake Street, and up Illinois Route 53. There are plentiy of small industrial parks where different corporate offices have set up shop. In the back parking lot of Arrow Electronics I found GD42-CACK - actually getting within 1 meters according to the GPS. I took the time to take a whole bunch of pictures "in the round" so I could create a panorama similar to what I had for my first photo of my Game 1 visit - although it didn't turn out as well. There's also a photo of the sign outside the building with its nifty logo. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Nursery in park by schaumburg guy N 42° 01.548 W 088° 03.877 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/12/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

"Where Are You"

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

We were up in the Schaumburg area to visit the Lego store at the Woodfield Mall on arguably one of the busiest shopping days of the holiday season. As pay off for my enduring crowded malls and parking a full quarter mile away from the entrance, my wife said that it would be OK if I hit a drive-by cache. I looked on the map and came across this one, only about 2 miles from the mall. We easily pulled in and got within 300 feet with parking, even though the lot was full. Sherry, Drew and Sam opted to stay in the care owing to the cold weather, and the new Bionicles that needed to be assembled. I trudged out and quickly scored the cache, complete with a Travel Bug (Where Are You). Having traveled off of the main path, we continued south on Plum Grove Road until we were able to get back on to the Interstate at Lake and I-355 - much better than having gotten on back at the mall. Great excuse for all.

Cross Road-Express Travel Bug Hotel by Rome263 N 39° 08.080 W 088° 33.618 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/26/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Saw a tree from about 300 feet away and just knew that it would be there. Comfort Inn lot was a little conspicuous for my tastes, but I got it done. Best was finding the CYBret trading card.

Pleasant View Foreign Currency Exchange by BigOldBoots N 36° 23.503 W 087° 02.289 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 12/26/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Drew

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I really tried hard on this one. On Dec 26, the area was full of snow and ice - hard to believe this is Nashville area. I scoured this area in just about every crevace and didn't find anything.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD42-CAME Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 36.3407° W 087.0246° State: Tennessee Date Tried: 12/26/2004 3:59 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Northwest of Nashville, TN 372.04 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: A Sheet of Ice at a 35° Angle This one should have been a drive-by, but the recent blizzard that hit this area, dumping a year's worth of snow in 24 hours, made it impassable. We exited the interstate with my skeptical wife behind the wheel. After failing a nearby cache (GCKQVC) we limped onward to the dashpoint. Unfortunately, I missed the main road turn off that might have gotten us to the location, and I had to try to bring us in a back way. We turned on a little road called Randy Road and tried to backtrack the 1.25 miles to the dashpoint. Soon however, we realized that yesterday's and today's weather had combined for something very hazardous. The inches of heavy fallen snow had not been removed by the Tennessee highway commission - as I'm sure they don't have the equipment or expertise in snow removal. The weather had warmed just enough for the top layer of snow to melt to thin water. THEN, the temperature dropped again. It was like driving my car on ice following the zamboni. A quick look at the hill involved lead us to the decision that had we ventured down the hill toward the dashpoint, we would have tested one of the fundamental laws of inertia: objects in motion tend to stay in motion until acted upon by another force. In this case, friction was not playing in to the formula, so another force would have been impact with an immovable object like a tree. We pulled in to the driveway at the crest of the hill and endeavored to turn around. Upon backing out, we found that the car would NOT go forward. I hopped out of the passenger side and got to the back of the car and gave it a little shove. Anyone who's played air hockey knows that things move pretty easily when friction is reduced. I moved my car up the slight incline very easily. The best part was the group of locals trying to get their pickup truck up the hill. There were four guys in overalls bouncing in the bed of the pickup trying to get enough weight for the tires to get traction. As we drove by they saw our Illinois plates and said "Ha - y'all are from Ill-ih-noise, so y'all are prob'ly used ta this stuff!" As I ran to catch up to the car at the corner ahead, I thought to myself: "Yep - but we know how to clear it off of our streets, and we don't have hills!" Zero points, but an interesting diversion

Welcome to Signal Mountain/Northern End by BackBrakeBilly N 35° 08.920 W 085° 19.292 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/27/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I've been to Signal Mountain many times. I've found caches that have tingled my blood and warmed my soul. This by far was the easiest of the caches I've found on the mountain - just outside the town itself. I rummaged around in the area that I thought the cache would be, and didn't see anything. Then my GPS lead me elsewhere - to no avail. In a last ditch effort I went back to my original thoughts, and found the cache.

Lil’ Cave in Falling Water by BackBrakeBilly N 35° 10.991 W 085° 14.908 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 12/28/2004 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

This was my own "fear" of going to a place that I didn't think I should. I was on my way to a dashpoint, and had gotten off Route 27 to head up Boy Scout Road, when this cache showed up. I pulled up and found what looked like a power substation, and I figured that this was NOT the place to be placing or looking for a cache. After re-reading the page, I now know my fears were unfounded. I wish I had gone to the cache.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD42-CAYN Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 35.1961° W 085.1995° State: Illinois Date Found: 12/28/2004 7:17 am Hunters: Kelly North of Chattanooga, TN 474.62 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Early One Morning, Evactuation Route While staying at my in-laws' house during Christmas break, I decided there were two drive-by dashpoints worth looking at. This one was very easy to score, but quite a bit of a drive. I went down the "W" road of Signal Mountain (an old stagecoach trail that was converted to a paved road), which in itself is an adventure. I've uploaded two similar pictures one of the W road (so named for it's shape on a map) and another picture with the walls of the W road enhanced. After reaching the bottom of the mountain is was about a 25 minute drive to the point itself, which was just along a hilly road with the home to the south housing the point. However, I was able to get within 94 meters by hugging the shoulder and glancing at the white ranch home. Two other items of note: I travelled along Boy Scout Road to reach my destination, and noticed that there were numerous signs that this was the evacuation route for Sequoya Nuclear Reactors near Chickamauga Lake, about 18 miles NE of Chattanooga. These roads are hardly the best for maintaining a lot of traffic, so I don't know why this was designated as the evacuation route. Picture of the sign has been uploaded. Last thing of note was that much of this trip was done during the sunrise hours. After reaching the point and heading back up the W road, I found myself at what is locally known as "The Brow" - elite homes worth a couple of million US dollars, with a view of the sunrise that was spectacular. This was one of the rare instances where the camera actually made the view better than what I had while I was actually there. I hope Scout will indulge my fourth, but very pretty, picture of this dashpoint hunt. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD42-CAWK Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 35.1729° W 085.4868° State: Illinois Date Found: 12/29/2004 10:45 am Hunters: Kelly, Drew Farmland Near Powells Crossroads, TN 471.02 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Suck Creek Road My son Drew was invited down to the set of the NBC station (WRCB) in Chattanooga for the morning news show. Jed Mescon is the morning co-anchor for the show and a good friend of my inlaws. So, after getting up at 3:30 CDT (4:30 local) and heading down the mountain, we were at the studio by 6:00 a.m. Not that this has much to do with the dashpoint, but I just had to brag and upload one shot later. It does set up the rest of the day, however. After going back up Signal Mountain, my son and I snoozed through another hour's of sleep while the rest of the family got ready to embark on an adventure with my younger son: tea. When I woke from my nap, the family was ready to head out the door, and that left my older son Drew and me to fend for ourselves. Great: an opportunity for the other easy drive-by! We left Signal Mountain not by the W road, but by Route 127 to the north. This is the sloped entrance to Signal Mountain, but the road doesn't lead to any major interstates or roadways, so it's less traveled. After reaching the valley floor, it was a leisurely drive to the spot near Powells Crossroads, TN, that held the dashpoint. The home that housed the point was a red brick ranch with multiple satellite dishes in the yard, and was right across the street from the local baseball field. Easily scored at 47 meters from the car. I saw a sign at the actual crossroads in Powells Crossroads that said "<-- Chattanooga" so I foolishly took it. Little did I know that this was Suck Creek Road, a road known for its steep inclines, dangerous precipices and lack of guardrails. The W road was winding and steep, but this road had me white-knuckled for the drive, as I felt sure we would plummet into the abyss that was the Tennessee River before reaching the top of the mountain, and then heading back down. From the beginning of the road's climb at 700 feet, we were soon at 2150, and the finally reached the bottom of the path at 600 feet elevation. The topo maps simply call this area "Walden" or "Escarpment" and I was pressed to find exactly which mountain I crossed, but it may indeed have been the back side of Lookout Mountain. I uploaded a topo map of the area. 3 White Knuckled points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Holes by Team Hopkins N 35° 03.618 W 085° 18.545 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 12/29/2004 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Having driven Suck Creek Road, I ended up in Coolidge Park with my family and in-laws. Hey, there's a cache right over there. Hey, there's a fence blocking our way in. No smiley today.

Don’t be a Joter: The Sequel by Monkeybrad N 35° 02.344 W 085° 40.987 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/30/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

YAWN When I started off the process of looking for caches along my route, I had heard the reputation of Nashville as being the capital of the lame micros. So, my first criteria on the trip was to exclude micros. I know this was unfortunately going to exclude some good caches, but I didn't want to waste my time with finding a cache under the lamp post base in a Walmart parking lot. Guess what? Someone decided to make a Members Only cache that was a micro in a Walmart parking lot lamp post base, and NOT label it as a micro. Why in the world would you NOT do this? Monkeybrad has made a big stink in the forums about "If you don't like these kind of caches, don't do them." Fine. If you place one like this, mark it properly so I'm not duped into finding this one and realizing what it is when I'm 3 feet from the cache. I wasn't sure the best way to diplomatically say what I really wanted to say in my log: (why did you bring me here?), so I penned a short and succinct log: When I first arrived at the cache area, I thought it was in the little wooded area. I was hoping for a spot to leave a travel bug. I'd suggest labeling this one as a micro so that people can exclude it from their searches if they so desire.

Tribute to ShowMeTheCache “Redone” by JoGPS N 35° 51.290 W 086° 27.880 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/30/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Hoping for a Travel Bug sized cache, we stopped and hit this cache fairly easily. However, Drew and I discovered that it didn't have the diameter for the travel bug we were hoping to deposit, so we signed the log and went on our way.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD42-CAOS Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 35.8635° W 086.4809° State: Illinois Date Found: 12/30/2004 1:48 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry SW of Nashville, TN, Near Murfreesboro 410.29 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: The Day the Garbage Truck Threw Up A quick hop off the interstate, and a drive to a little country baptist church. They have a pavillion out back, and the point was easily reached by parking the car near a footbridge in the back of the property and hoofing it across the bridge. I got to 95 meters and called it scored. Then the adventure began. While going back to the Interstate, we turned onto Florence Avenue to the north and saw some garbage. Then we saw more garbage, and more garbage, and more garbage. It seems a BFI garbage truck had started vomitting out its load of freshly packed garbage onto the street unbeknownst to the driver. He evidently continued down the road for a good half-mile before realizing exactly what was happening. Traffic was slowed to a crawl as only one lane was passable, and the reek of rotting garbage filled the air. A few brave souls heading south had darted out of their cars to kick aside some of the trash that would have otherwise punctured tires, and finally made a single lane pass through. All of this must have happened less than 5 minutes before our arrival on the scene. No police had yet arrived. I had multiple pictures of the garbage all along the highway, but inadvertantly deleted the contents of my camera, which had captured this day's events. 3 stinky points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Behind the Sign @ Boot Hill by TN BountyHunters N 36° 00.950 W 086° 36.917 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/30/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Baloo: Den 4 Bears

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

One of my favorites of the trip. This will go down in my top 10%, if only just because it proves that park-and-grab caches need not be Walmart Parking Lots under the lamp-base. A cool little hidden area with neat history that no one, save Geocachers would know about. This one was definitely worthy of dropping the Baloo Travel Bug.

Jeep Dealership Travel Bug Resort by Silver_Dragon N 36° 42.339 W 087° 27.318 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/30/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

"Where Are You"

Spot the BIG-EYED Butterfly We're lost, can U help us find a cache? (No Picture)

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

SPLOSH! That's the sound that is soon followed by "Meine Schuhe sind nass." I've used this German phrase which translates to "My shoes are wet" for a couple of years on the forums. After unsuccessfully trying to find places for my Travel Bugs, this was the best bet, but it was a hop, skip and splorsh through a drainage ditch full of water to reach the cache. I was a little uneasy at the location, but quickly got everything done that I needed to, and we were back on the road.

Hub Of The Universe - Marion, Illinois by CaptMorgan2 N 37° 43.849 W 088° 55.628 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/31/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

What's Your Fame?

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Sam and I found it very easily, but as we were rummaging through the contents, another set of cachers came up and started talking to us. Fun experience, and I'm glad to have met them.

Goddard Chapel Micro by sorchah N 37° 44.597 W 088° 55.896 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/31/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Cool. I hadn't planned on hitting this one, but when we did (and were handed the cache by the other cachers present), we went in to explore the chapel itself. Cool stuff.

Keep On Rolling by CaptMorgan2 N 37° 45.324 W 088° 55.937 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 12/31/2004 Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

A disappointment. I thought for sure this would make me 3/3 in Marion, but after combing the vehicle top to bottom, there was no container in site.

Cache of the Sabbath by Justman7 N 38° 18.422 W 088° 56.804 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/31/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

One of the most rugged caches I hunted on this trip - if not for anything else but the mud. Cool area, neat little hike behind the church. I did see the freaky things, and even took pictures, but alas - I dumped the data from my camera prematurely.

Hippie Memorial Cache by CYBret N 39° 41.124 W 088° 18.494 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 12/31/2004 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry, CYBret

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Nice when the cache owner shows up at a DQ and actually drives you to the cache location. I had a great chance to meet Bret here, and when we drove up, I started looking through the area. "What, Markwell? You're going to try and find it without a GPS? You're a wildman!" Wildman or not, I found the cache, signed it, replaced it, and had about a 20 minute chat with Bret while the kids romped around the memorial. Thanks to the owner for meeting up with this ole' northerner.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD42-CABI Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 40.5024° W 088.1319° State: Illinois Date Found: 12/31/2004 4:01 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Famland Outside Paxton, IL 78.98 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: We're Headed Home, Right? Anyone who's traveled lengthy journeys with a 5 and 9 year old in the back seat can attest that the trip gets pretty boring, and that nerves can be testy. We had stopped numerous times on our journey for Geo-spots, either caches or dashes, and this was the last one on the route. I was at the wheel when we left my meeting with CYBret in central Illinois and vowed that this point wouldn't add too much time to our journey. It took a little longer than I expected, and my wife certainly got testy as we reached the spot: a piece of barren farmland near Paxton, Illinois. The only thing that made this location distinguishable from the rest of the surrounding farmland was an unused telephone post that was standing at the dashpoint itself. We pulled up, I said "There it is" and paused long enough to mark the GPS at 10 meters, and we drove on, reaching home at around 6:15 p.m. on Dec 31. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

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Last Updated:
January 4 2005 11:00 CST