Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
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June 2007

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD72-BYXA Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.4211° W 088.6636° State: Illinois Date Found: 6/17/2007 9:55 am Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Wags Temperature: 82°F/28°C Closest Distance: 99.6 meters Farm Country FAR SW of Chicago, IL 27.20 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Section Cemetery and Ma Bell What a day for a dashpoint. Having just come off of a week of Cub Scout Day Camp where I taught around 400 boys the arts and sciences of Maps and Compass, and with Saturday marking our 17th wedding anniversary, and this day being Father's Day - it was time for a drive. Side note: This being our 17th Wedding Anniversary, we knew the 17-year-cicadas would be out, and we have not been disappointed. More info here The Mrs. was still in bed when I loaded the two boys and Wags the dog into the car and headed down the grid of farm roads that would eventually bring me to the dashpoint. It was a chance to relax with the windows open and feel the breeze on our hands (doing airplane motions as we traveled). This dashpoint would be the closest almost-driveby to home and this was probably the only time during the month when I could dash - so dash we did. After going west, then south, then more west, then more south and finally west again we approached the point. I knew from my recon that scoring from the car would be VERY close, but the straight East-West roads (and straight North-South roads) make these approaches very easy. Since I was approaching this field of corn from the east on the south side, I watched the GPS as we inched forward in the car - watching the degrees climb toward 360. As we hit 359° and approached the 0° mark, my distance was ranging around 100.02 meters in the car. Finally at 0° it blipped down to 99.59 meters. YES! Now for the area: I could have easily gotten out of the car and walked the 3 or 4 meters to assure the proximity to the dashpoint. The easement from the road before the cornfield would have allowed for that without difficulty. Just to the west of the dashpoint is an old cemetery - “Section Cemetery” - which was established in 1852. It's a rather small provincial cemetery with graves that I saw dating back to deaths in 1865, and some as recent as 2006 or 2007. It would be entirely possible for one to score the dashpoint by walking to the compost heap on the northeast corner of the cemetery. I'm sure that's within scoring range. So back east and north and east and north we went, with the boys loading up their Nintendo games and the dog lazily sleeping in the sunshine of the passenger seat (with the air conditioner blowing on her nose). We did spot the AT&T transmission tower that resides at 41.4561, -88.6207. This is a fairly large microwave repeater tower in the middle of no where, built in the 1960's by Illinois Bell (one of the “Ma Bell” conglomerates) that was designed to withstand World War III. Picture of the tower has been uploaded. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD72-BYZA Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.5666° W 088.3989° State: Illinois Date Tried: 6/17/2007 10:29 am Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Wags Temperature: 82°F/28°C Closest Distance: 536.2 meters Triangle of Lisbon, Yorkville and Plainfield, SW of Chicago, IL 10.25 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Look Quick! Oops - you missed it I knew from my early recon that this was unreachable, but it was on the way to GD72-BYXA since Caton Farm Road was one of the east-west grid lines that heads out of my home of Plainfield toward the west. Not much to say other than it was farm land planted with corn and poised in the car on the way home from GD72-BYXA we didn't get any closer than 536 meters. 0 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

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Last Updated:
July 5 2007