Team Markwell's GPS Adventures
Non omnes vagi perditi sunt
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July 2007

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD73-CAQO Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 42.1249° W 086.1326° State: Michigan Date Tried: 7/1/2007 6:55 pm Hunters: Kelly Temperature: 62°F/17°C Closest Distance: 424.8 meters Keeler, Michigan, west of Benton Harbor 112.76 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Owasippe Camp and an Apple Orchard Well - my son is heading out for his first Summer Camp. At 11 years old, he's ready for his first Boy Scout Summer Camp, and his troop chose the oldest Boy Scouts of America camp in existence - Owasippe Camp, north of Muskegon, Michigan. It's owned by the Chicago Area Council, and was donated to the Boy Scouts of America in 1911, just one year after the Boy Scouts of America was chartered in 1910. I offered to drive the boys as a driver (up and back twice). On the way back home, I had the dashpoints loaded in my GPS so I decided to venture into a new state for dashing - Michigan. The dashpoint almost looked like it could be scored from my recon, but when I arrived I was to be foiled. The dashpoint lies in the middle of a newly planted apple orchard. What looked like a road from the aerial shots was just an access trail for the harvesters, and I was met with Private Property signs. The area was gorgeous, but would not yield a dashpoint score. So, zero points on my first Michigan dashhunt.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD73-CABA Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 42.1363° W 087.9941° State: Illinois Date Found: 7/4/2007 1:03 pm Hunters: Kelly, Sam, Sherry Temperature: 84°F/29°C Closest Distance: 0.1 meters Buffalo Grove, IL - NW of Chicago 36.16 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Incredible Technologies Fourth of July in the middle of the week doesn't hold much for our family. Both my wife and I had the day off, and with the older son still at BSA summer camp I asked if we could hit one dashpoint, as the rest of the month might be difficult. GD73-CABA is in Arlington, Illinois, northwest of Chicago and very near Buffalo Grove. It’s also about 6 miles (9.5 km) from Woodfield Mall, one of the largest malls around, so the wife and youngest son agreed, as long as we stopped at the Lego store. After a great lunch and a trip to the mall, we ventured north on Route 53 and exited Dundee Road. The point itself lies in the back lot behind Incredible Technologies (itsgames.com), a company that makes arcade games like golf and bag toss. Interesting - this seems to go along with one of my favorite quotes in Dilbert: Dilbert bemoans Dogbert for playing a tiny video game of golf: Wait - you're playing a video game about a sport that has liesurely walks and gets you outside? That seems barely to be a sport and it's now a video game? What are you doing on there right now? Learning to drive the golf cart So I hopped out of the car since the warehouse-sized building was empty and strolled on the grassy lot to the east of the loading docks. I was easily able to zero out (although my GPS kept saying 2 feet that way, no - 3 feet that way - no, wait). 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Tuscola Travel Bug Rest Stop by pneuma N 39° 47.466 W 088° 17.569 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/14/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Sock Monkey

White Jeep Travel Bug "Joscelyn"

White Jeep Travel Bug "Joda"

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I've been carrying around some travel bugs for far too long. I haven't found a cache (a real cache) since almost a year ago and I picked up a load of TBs at the picnic - so I needed to unload some. This trip to drop the boys off in Paducah seemed as good of an excuse as any, so I plotted out the likely caches on the way. Tuscola Travel Bug Rest Stop - sounds promising. The lunch at the Candy Kitchen was great - and we weren't too far from the cache. I honed in on the location immediately, and was pleased that there was enough room for the Sockmonkey and other TBs (and that there weren't any languishing in the cache at the time to tempt me). I was able to get rid of the Sockmonkey and two White Jeeps.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD73-BYUH Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 38.1831° W 088.9476° State: Illinois Date Found: 7/14/2007 4:19 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry Temperature: 78°F/26°C Closest Distance: 98.4 meters Rend Lake Southern Illinois, 73 miles (118km) SE of St. Louis 241.87 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Rend Lake Waterfowl Observation With a trip to the south to drop off my two sons for a week with my in-laws, we couldn't pass on trying to find at least one dashpoint on the trip - and a few caches. This seemed ready-made for both. The dashpoint is on the little-used northwest side of Rend Lake in southern Illinois. Rend Lake is a reservoir, created when the United States Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Big Muddy River near Benton, Illinois. The dam and lake were authorized in 1962, but the lake was not completely filled until March 1973. Today, Rend Lake contains 18,900 acres (76 km˛) of water and supplies over 15 million gallons of water per day to 300,000 persons in over 60 communities. It's also home to Wayne Fitzgerrell State Recreation Area a favorite destination for boaters not wishing to hit the Mississippi or the Ohio Rivers. While scoping out possible hits for this trip for caches and dashes, I was pleased to see that Rend Lake Waterfowl Observation Cache (GC8098) was only 0.48 miles (0.78 km) from the dashpoint. So off of Interstate-57 and a northerly loop around Rend Lake and we approached the dashpoint. I pulled up when I was 114 meters from the dashpoint still in my car and directly 270° from the point. Hopping out and approaching the easement and drainage ditch, I scored by walking up to the edge of the cornfield, coming within 98 meters. I've uploaded three pictures of the dashpoint scoring location to the Geodashing site, but you can see more pictures of the Rend Lake cache and it's great scenery at my log on Geocaching.com for GC8098 below. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Rend Lake Waterfowl Observation Cache by PrestonP N 38° 10.571 W 088° 56.945 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/14/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

White Jeep Travel Bug "Aelfraed"

Green Jeep Blackcap Mountain (CA)

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

A ready-made cache-and-dash. Very nice. I also unloaded two more jeeps - a Green 2006 model and White 2005. Excellent! The cache itself may have been what earned me the tick as I clambered through tall grass (unnecessarily), but it was a VERY nice stop on a long route.

cache lewy5 by lewy N 37° 24.935 W 088° 53.442 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/15/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Sherry

WD's Silver Ticket

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Fun little cache, and a great exuse to hop out and drop off our last TB in possession for the trip - as well as trying out the new digital camera (our fourth).

Russell Street Park Micro by sorchah N 37° 44.204 W 088° 56.389 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/15/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

OK - I specifically weeded out micros from my PQ only to find this cache here. Grrr. It's labelled as Small, but in my book Altoid tins definitely qualify as micros. No problem finding it - but all it really did was boost my find count and give me the opportunity to photograph a froggy-style playground.

Cache de Ava by rockyMTNcacher N 38° 19.444 W 088° 57.065 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/15/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

A good-sized cache in a little known forested area. Very nice. Too bad that the field had freshly mown grass containing ticks. I flicked one off my wrist as I signed the log book. I had Sherry check me top-to-bottom before I got back in the car. Unfortunately, I had one on my back - either from this location or the Rend Lake from the previous night. Ewww.

Masters of the Wind by peshot N 38° 21.091 W 088° 55.856 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 7/15/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

I felt VERY uncomfortable with this cache, so we passed it by. I've never understood the need to put caches on private property. Unless the private property is something REALLY special, why bring me there? Admittedly, there were some neat windmills nearby, but we just pulled in and turned around (even though further review later on the cache page indicates that the cache is placed with permission of the property owner).

JC Lake by Big Buck & Little Doe N 38° 22.611 W 088° 53.959 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/15/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

There was some major flodding in the area and our chosen entrance route of CR1650 is impassable at a fallen and eroded bridge (N 38° 22.216 W 088° 54.326). The bridge is still there, but has been hit hard by the floodwaters (see uploaded pictures), so we hit this one from the north. However, when we got to the spot the first thing we saw was the tremendous amount of garbage. We tried to CITO as much as we could, but there was a TON. This is obviously a favorite hangout. While my wife admired the waterlillies and the ripples created by the speedboat, I went in search of the cache. It became a lesson in spotting poisonous plants with both poison ivy and poison oak in the area. I found the cache, but there was something amiss: the lid was open (evidently from the contents being full to the brim) - but the hiding spot had evidently been hit by the flood as well. I picked up the cache and said (to quote the Fox in the last page of “The Stinky Cheese Man”) Oh man! What is that funky smell? The contents had mold and decay all over them and were completely unsalvageable. I laid the contents out on the grass back at the parking lot and photographed them (uploaded), and left the cache container where it was - but there is no log book or any contents at this point. To be usable again, I would say that the container would have to be taken home and bleached or maybe even pitched for something more watertight. It was a great location as the photos will attest, but the cache itself is toast.

Downed bridge Eroded support structure Mrs. says these are snapdragons Poison Oak and Poison Ivy Destroyed Cache

Destroyed contents Ruined logbook Water Lillies Trumpet Vine

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD73-BYPO Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 40.4134° W 089.2816° State: Illinois Date Found: 7/21/2007 11:05 am Hunters: Kelly, Sherry Temperature: 76°F/24°C Closest Distance: 73.2 meters Farm Country Between Bloomington and Peoria, Center of Illinois 101.05 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: The Road Less Traveled: Minier Memories On the retrun trip to Paducah, Kentucky to pick up my boys after a week with my in-laws, we took a different route than the main interstate, traveling first down Interstate 55 instead of Interstate 57, and then down Route 51, the north-south ribbon of highway that (to the north of I-57) becomes I-39, but otherwise splits the east and west halves of the state in twain. About 14 miles/23 km east of Delavan, Illinois (where I had my first teaching job) lies a tiny smudge on the map known as Minier. This is definitely central Illinois farm country with tasselled corn on either side of the road. We trekked the lonesome grid of roads to this mostly-dirt path and came within 73 meters just by driving on the road. No pics, but we had a long drive ahead of us. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD73-BYTA Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 40.0705° W 089.0538° State: Illinois Date Found: 7/21/2007 1:12 pm Hunters: Kelly, Sherry Temperature: 77°F/25°C Closest Distance: 99.6 meters Farm Country SW of Clinton, Center of Illinois 116.78 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: The Road Less Traveled: Field of Dreams? Still trudging down Route 51, we stopped in Clinton, Illinois for lunch and antiques, and eventually came out on the south side with a dashpoint in our sites. Having done the full recon, I knew that this would be a short trek into farm country, but the view was not what I expected. As we crested a small rise on some lolling hills we were greeted with a rare site in Illinois - a hilltop with a commanding 360° view. The photos don't do it justice, but it was quite a site. The only thing marring this trip was the fresh “tar-and-chip” gravel on the road that clicked it's warning that to go too fast risked adhesion of the goo on this warm summer day. So we approached and I reached the closest point - the wife in the car asked how far I needed to go - about 100 feet - into the corn field like James Earl Jones or Ray Liotta diappearing into the corn in Field of Dreams. Some 100 feet later, with my GPS held high above my head and the surrounding corn stalks, I clicked the MARK LOCATION button and headed back to the car. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD73-BYRA Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 39.5464° W 089.1742° State: Illinois Date Found: 7/21/2007 2:32 pm Hunters: Kelly, Sherry Temperature: 78°F/26°C Closest Distance: 61.9 meters Farm Country East of Taylorville, Center of Illinois 152.98 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: The Road Less Traveled: Second Best and Ancestral Memories Down some back country roads from Decatur, we ambled along hitting roads between Taylorville and Assumption, Illinois. These two towns bring memories of my father's stories of growning up, spending summers with HIS grandfather during harvest and de-tasseling time. My great-grandfather lived to be 102 and is buried in the Assumption cemetery - and I met him several times, although toward the end he did not have much memory. At his 100th birthday party in 1986, he shook the hands of all of his descendants, which were labeled with name tags indicating which of his 6 children we descended from, and when he got to my father, he pulled him in closer and asked “Feel like walkin’ some beans?” - a chore he knew my father loathed. So we hit this dashpoint, second after RogBarn, but knowing that this trek through the area was ripe with family history. I only wish I could have lingered longer in the area to find a gravestone and say a quick hello. 2 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD73-BYTH Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 38.8237° W 089.0480° State: Illinois Date Found: 7/21/2007 4:00 pm Hunters: Kelly, Sherry Temperature: 81°F/27°C Closest Distance: 97.8 meters South of Vandalia, Illinois - Former Capitol 199.36 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: The Road Less Traveled: Trouble at the Mill Yet again, we found ourselves riding the road of grids, first east-west, then north-south as we approached the dashpoint. But this one was more interesting, and least these straight-as-an-arrow roads went up-and-down, and there was a hint of adventure and surprise on this one. As we traveled the east-west road that would take us ultimately to our goal (and our last dashpoint of the day), we stumbled on a mill, closed for the day, but obviously still in use. I called this “Trouble at the Mill” not because of any trouble that we encountered, but as a reference to that old saying in movies where there's always someone rushing in saying there's Trouble at the Mill. The wooded area and lake indicated on my recon was not to give us any trouble as we scored 97 meters from the road, adminred the trumpet vine in bloom throughout the area and then headed off to Paducah to get our boys. It has been quoted before in Geodashing, but this trip really played it out: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Candy Cane Lane by CaptMorgan2 N 37° 53.679 W 088° 55.212 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 7/22/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Wooly Bug

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

We needed to stop for gasoline and a bathroom break, plus I wanted to get rid of a few of the travel bugs I had, so we stopped in West Frankfort. The bug I chose for this little cache was the perfect one - I don't think anything else would have fit.

Limestone Bug Hotel by GAAK N 40° 49.290 W 088° 41.239 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 7/22/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Drew, Sam, Sherry

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

A little too far into the tall weeds for me after last week's tick episode. I had hoped to drop off some more Travel Bugs here, but I really, REALLY didn't want to get another tick.

Back to June 2007
On to August 2007

Last Updated:
August 15 2007