Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
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July 2005

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD49-CAFU Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.6134° W 087.9629° State: Illinois Date Found: 7/2/2005 10:54 am Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Temperature: 81°F/27°C Between Lockport and Homer Township, SW of Chicago 13.92 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Homer Township Independence Day Parade A weekend that we had no plans. It happens so infrequently, that I just HAD to spend it doing GEO stuff. So after consulting GSAK and streets and trips, we were headed off for a round of dashes and caches. We got a later start in the morning that I had wanted, but we still were able to get out in the great part of the day. We travelled through Lockport, the aptly (although not too creatively named) town that contained many locks along the historic I&M Canal (Illinois and Michigan). After reaching the east side of town it was a matter of continuing on well-maintained roads until we reached the Homer Township. As we passed by the local firehouse, all of the antique and current firetrucks were lining up. According to a sign, less than 10 minutes after we passed the firehouse, the township would be having its Independence Day parade, and the firetrucks would of course be leading it off. We drove to the dashpoint, which was just to the north of a country farmhouse with an old John Deere tractor in the yard. The the north of the magic circle and the road we were on was a golf course. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

The True Explorers - Blast Off! by Team WO9LF N 41° 31.986 W 087° 59.517 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/2/2005 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Came out in the area after hitting a Geodash (yet again) and came back to this park. As we were scoping around areas, looking to find the cache, our GPS went crazy. As my oldest son started looking around, he pointed out a likely spot and it clicked. That was the hiding spot of On Rollon Ma Boule, a cache we had found almost EXACTLY 3 years ago on July 5, 2002. One of the interesting facts when we searched for the cache was that we also came across the same historical marker we had found the previous time, only this time it was in a horizontal position instead of an upright position. Sad.

The Shorewood Troll by Stunod N 41° 31.128 W 088° 12.010 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/2/2005 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Found this cache without the use of a GPS. Actually had the Terra Server images and knew that based on the title and the image there were probably about 2 or 3 places that it could be hiding. Wonder why this one was rated 1.5 for difficulty?

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD49-BYYV Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.5240° W 088.5283° State: Illinois Date Found: 7/2/2005 1:12 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Temperature: 82°F/28°C Lisbon Center, Far West of Chicago 17.50 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Right height, but too curly After hitting a cache at the site of a historic French Fort and a quick stop off at a cache near the river, we traveled on to this dashpoint in the country heading west along Route 52 from Shorewood. The drive was pretty, but my wife and I were struck by the look of the corn. As I've said just about each year, there's a old farmer's adage of the corn being at least "knee high by the fourth of July". The corn is indeed knee-high, but due to the severe drought conditions of the upper Midwest, the leaves are anything but desirable. Most fields (unless there's an obvious stream nearby or the farmer has irrigated) the leaves on the corn stalks are green, but tightly curled, signalling a severe lack of water. Unless conditions change drastically, farmers are going to have a terrible year. After driving through corn and bean fields, we passed over Route 47 and traveled another 5 miles to the west on Lisbon Road and finally reached the dashpoint. There's a U shaped turn-around to the south of the road, and my wife (driving), used it to pull into the spot and let me bail. I was able to walk just to the edge of the bean field to score at 95 meters. There's a line of trees to the north that looked good and green, but even these beans were looking peaked. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD49-BYZO Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.8709° W 088.4922° State: Illinois Date Found: 7/2/2005 1:57 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Temperature: 81°F/27°C Elburn, Illinois, Northwest of Chicago along 47 20.77 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Equestrians and Off Road RC Races My wife and I looked at the Terra Server images prior to heading out for the day, and we were both intrigued by the white geometric circles, elipses, and nebulous polygons on the landsape. We both made guesses, and she finally settled on an equestrian home with jumps and stables (augmented by the large barn and stable looking building on the property. Our close examination of the area agreed with her assesment - a horse and riding area. But even though the sprawling land looked ample enough for public stables full of many riders taking lessons, it was also obvious that either A) this was a VERY exclusive clue or B) it was a private estate. Everything outwardly lead us to believe the latter - a private estate. But there were surely a LOT of horses that could ride here. We only saw one in a horse blanket (on this warm 81°F/27°C day. Just to the west of the scoring range and across the road was a small facility for running small remote control off-road cars in races, and the "DD Dawgs" were out racing today. Cool. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Arbor Liviathan by WyoBear N 41° 47.497 W 088° 10.992 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/2/2005 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Me and the boys had a GREAT time with this one. We took the main trail in and got 200 feet from the cache (but we were too far east and couldn't get closer. So what's a good person to do but bushwack! Me and the boys were stumbling through the thick undergrowth for a good long time. Suddenly we came upon a live tree to the north and east of the target - one that rivals the leviathan in girth and majesty. The lowest branch was only reachable by our walking sticks and it couldn't be circumnavigated by an adult, 9 year old and 5 year old stretching our arms in an arboreal hug! Great tree. We found the cache and it was a let down after that huge live tree, although when we reached 30 feet, I said "Look for something that's out of place" - and my youngest (5yo) found it first. Cool. And then we saw it. Not only the better path in (our way was easily a 3 star terrain), but the etymological source for the cache. Others who have read my logs in the Chicago area and beyond know my love for large trees, fallen or standing, but this was amazing. My sons and I dawdled our noontime there in the canopy's shade, talking of trees, size, bugs, graffiti vandalism (the carvings) and nature in general. After a pause in our great journey in life, we went back the intended path, seeing a vastly different world than our ingress gave us. This was a world of pure canopy, such that the ground was lacking in ANY undergrowth, save sporadic shoots where some other arbor leviathan had fallen and made a sunlit shaft nurishing seedlings that would have otherwise fallen to compost in their seeds. But most of the floor was a blanket of fallen oak leaves and an occassional root protruding from the ground. This was easily one of my favorite caches of all time - and it will be listed as such. Thanks for an extremely enjoyable afternoon hike.

Golf Cache by cluehunter N 41° 43.994 W 088° 11.462 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/2/2005 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Parked, walked a while through some knee high scrub, and found the cache lying in the open by the side of a tree.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD49-BYVI Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.7664° W 088.9421° State: Illinois Date Found: 7/10/2005 9:26 am Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Temperature: 81°F/27°C Between Shabbona and I-39, West of Chicago 37.74 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Lots of Repetition, and Something BRAND NEW Dec 8 2001 - GD06-03903: Markwell first visits Lake Shabbona and discovers a new State Park Oct 19 2002 - GD16-BYOJ: Markwell ventures THROUGH Shabbona and heads out to an even more remote dashpoint in West Frankfort. Mar 1 2003 - GD21-BYOJ: Markwell and family venture into Paw Paw, Illinois (Zip Code 61353) and capture a nice slice of Midwest Americana Aug 16 2003 - GD26-BYOW: Markwell and sons head out to a point on I-39 and in a dashpoint named by Markwell as "Genesis of a Windfarm", he discovers a windfarm in the process of being built. There are two spires and one fully constructed windmill. Oct 4 2003 - GD28-BYOV: Markwell ventures again to the Shabbona area, this time, just outside the southern entrance of the state park and grabs a dashpoint. And so, on July 19, I went back to Lake Shabbona for our third annual Scout Camping trek to Shabbona. I can honestly say that this was the most memorable camping experience I've ever had, even though it was just two families. We cooked outdoors in dutch ovens, an art that my wife and I have mastered since our purchase last December. The Boy Scout Troop camping next to us had brought a 6 inch reflecting telescope. On this night where there was a cloudless sky and a sliver of a moon, we were treated to fantastic views of Jupiter and its moons, and a view of the moon that filled the eyepiece of the telescope. We were far away from the city lights of Chicago and its suburbs, which were only a light orange haze on the horizon, so the scouts and I kicked back letting the fire die to embers and looked up at the heavens in all their glory. My 9 year old son, for the first time in his life, saw the Milky Way clear as if it were a ribbon across the sky. The night was so clear and free of light pollution that we easily spotted many satellites streaking their way from horizon to horizon overhead. We pointed out many constellations and told their stories. It was a night to remember. And then it happened. Slowly at first - out of the corner of an eye. Sometime around 10:30 we caught the glimpse of a flash of light in the sky. Then another. We were in the middle of a meteor shower. I looked it up, and we were probably viewing the peak of the Pegasids Shower. This was a warm evening, and the drought in the area assured us of no overnight rain, so we slept without the fly on the tent, leaving us to an open screened view of the sky in our tent. By midnight, the meteor shower had increased in intensity considerably. My wife and I feel asleep on our backs gazing up at about a meteor every minute. The next morning, we broke camp, did our Leave-No-Trace coming of the area, and headed out. The Markwells (being Cub Masters) were pulling the Pack's Trailer, making driving a little difficult. But we went through Shabbona and scored the dashpoint at 53 meters, but since we had no rush to head home, we decided a little jaunt to return to the windfarm was in order, since RogBarn mentioned seeing so MANY windmills. In fact, we had seen the windmills from the distance approaching the point. After crossing I-39, we happened on German Road, a nice little two lane gravel country road that lended itself VERY well to get a good look at the Wind Farm. We took still photos, and even a short 30 second movie on the camera (I'll upload the file and link to that in a future message). And if this wasn't all too cool, we had another déjà vu: Jun 1 2002 - GD12-BUTI: Markwell and family spot their first Llama, but it's in Iowa. Later Markwell would find many other Llamas - in Indiana, North Carolina, etc., but never in his home state. Well, strike that one off the list, as we found Llamas IN ILLINOIS on German Road as we tried to head back through Paw Paw, Illinois. The Llama Farm to the east of the road had about 8 of them in the field. They seemed very curious at the minivan pulling the trailer, but one (the smart one) didn't want to seem to leave his spot. One llama had taken to lying in a kiddie pool filled with water in the shade of the barn. Pictures have been uploaded already. There's one of the wind farm, one of the llamas including the one in the pool, and one that's a composite of several of the good shots of the area. As I wrote earlier, I'll post my short movie on my own website space and provide a link in a follow up. All of this excitement and grandeur, and it was only 2 points, as RogBarn was here before me. Markwell for Team Trailblazers

Name That Cache by Charles Street Gang (adopted by Markwell) N 41° 45.296 W 088° 07.960 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/13/2005 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Found this cache as a result of having adopted it from Charles Street Gang. It was VERY close to the original Doc's Favorite Park cache that I found on 3/12/2004. Now that I've found it, I can officially adopt it!

July Ice Cream Social by Special Ed & FallenFaery N 41° 47.903 W 088° 20.956 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/20/2005 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry, Every other Geocacher from the Midwest, and a ton of White Jeeps

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Kind of a spur of the moment thing. We were pondering what to do on a Wednesday night, and I said - let's go for Ice Cream. What a great night.

Not So Krazy by GeoRon N 41° 42.492 W 088° 19.193 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/23/2005 Hunters: Kelly

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Went out to find a golfpoint to finish out my 14th course, and this cache was only a couple hundred yards away. Found it after only a little searching.

Geo-Golf Course Completed Course: GGAATE Course Radius: 12.1 Center: 41.7067, -88.1909 Total Strokes: 36 5/28/2005 - 7/23/2005 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. An exact duplicate request for GGAAPG (ending March 18)

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Last Updated:
August 9 2005 14:15 CDT