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

Click on Geovexilla Icon to see the Map VX08-TIYX Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.6830° W 088.4918° State: Illinois Date Tried: 10/17/2007 6:14 pm Hunters: Kelly Temperature: 65°F/18°C Closest Distance: 241.8 meters Flag: USA Between Plano and Yorkville, IL 13.89 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Geovexilla Name: Menard's Distribution Confirming RogBarn's experience. Nothing closer than 257 meters at the visitor's building.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD76-CAGN Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.6473° W 087.6277° State: Illinois Date Found: 10/21/2007 11:14 am Hunters: Kelly Temperature: 71°F/22°C Closest Distance: 30.6 meters Riverdale/Blue Island, IL - south of Chicago 30.99 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: ABC Auto Revisited I finally made it out to hit this dashpoint - and it's a busy month, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to maintain my streak of games. This point was in the Blue Island/Riverdale area. It's also very near to where we visited with GD71-CAFI on our May trip to the auto salvage yard to smash cars, so it was déjà vu all over again. Can't really add much to BOB!!'s report other than to say that the homes in this area, like so many other of Chicago's older neighborhoods, have the garages in the back of the house - and access to the garages are from a communal alley between the backs of the houses. 2 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Mather Woods by trekingfun N 41° 35.734 W 088° 13.403 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Found: 11/17/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Pack 13, Troop 13

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Found this one on an orienteering hike with Troop 13 AND Pack 13 (joint Webelos/Troop event). Nice location and perfect for estimating distance and bearing from parking lot. Also was able to drop off quite a few travel bugs.

In The Woods by trekingfun N 41° 35.843 W 088° 13.284 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Tried: 11/17/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Troop 13, Pack 13

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Looked around for quite a while, but couldn't find this one. Guess we were stumped.

Cachiversary 3: Anderson's Introduction by Markwell N 41° 35.794 W 088° 13.624 Difficulty: Terrain: Date Revisited: 11/17/2007 Hunters: Kelly, Troop 13, Pack 13

Harry the Lobster II

"Baybay, Philippines" Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug

"West Branch Saugatuck River (CT)" Red Jeep Travel Bug

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is cache.

Last of three we found on the orienteering hike. Left three Travel Bugs and made sure the cache was in good shape.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD77-BYUX Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.3353° W 088.7686° State: Illinois Date Tried: 11/23/2007 4:25 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew Temperature: 28°F/-2°C Closest Distance: 366.0 meters Between Ottawa and Marsellies along the Illinois River 35.08 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: ADM - Supermarket to the World Out for a drive the day after Thanksgiving, and I wanted to get as far away from the hubub of the malls and shopping areas as possible on what has become known as Black Friday, the day when most of the major chains make their most profits. As a small sampler, my son had a gift card to a local electronic gaming store, and wanted to purchase a used game. While in the store we heard no less than 12 conversations about the NEED (not the desire) to purchase a Wii system, and all were told the same thing: the store received 18 in this morning, and there was a line of 80 people waiting. OMG! I needed to get away from THAT kind of electronics. So my 12yo son and I popped into the 1999 Cutlass and went west - far west - to get away from the rat race. It was peaceful and pleasant while we listened to the unabridged book-on-CD Tolkien story of “The Hobbit” on our route. I had a choice of going Northwest to farmland that I *knew* would be a driveby, or to head to this area which was an unknown. My gamble didn't pay off. Archer-Daniels Midland (admworld.com) is one of the world’s largest agricultural processors of soybeans, corn, wheat and cocoa, and has a processing plant right on the Illinois River. Follow this link ( http://tinyurl.com/2puvkp ) to see how close we got to the dashpoint prior to being defeated by No Trespassing signs. Interesting side note: my son that accompanied me has the initials of ADM. 0 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

Click on Geovexilla Icon to see the Map VX11-MYYB Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.3441° W 088.6436° State: Illinois Date Tried: 11/23/2007 4:44 pm Hunters: Kelly, Drew Temperature: 28°F/-2°C Closest Distance: 359.5 meters Flag: Turks and Caicos Islands Southwest of Seneca, IL between Morris and Ottawa (SW of Chicago) 29.78 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Geovexilla Name: Smokehouse Ranch After an unsuccesful trip to GD77-BYUX, I had higher hopes for this Geovexilla point - but no such luck. What looked to be a park or RV campground turned out to be the latter - Smokehouse Ranch park, a KOA-type campground full of RVs and the smell of campfires. The way to the north on the aerial shot was blocked by a chain-link fence, and the main entrance had a guard house that would have required payment to enter, so we abandoned our attempt and traveled back home.

Click on Geovexilla Icon to see the Map VX12-CYST Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 41.7582° W 088.1511° State: Illinois Date Found: 12/3/2007 5:33 pm Hunters: Kelly Temperature: 30°F/-1°C Closest Distance: 6.5 meters Flag: Andorra Naperville, IL - west of Chicago 8.94 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Geovexilla Name: Robin Hill Near Edward My wife works at Edward Hospital in downtown Naperville, which is less than a half mile from the coordiantes. My brother was the first one to move out on his own when he attended North Central College in Naperville, Illinois from 1974 to 1978. When he married in 1979, he and his wife moved into a quaint little house on Fernwood Drive just 174 meters south (173°) of these coordinates. The neighborhood is an older one in Naperville and the house is a split-level brown house with a magenta door.

Click on Dash Icon to see the Map GD78-CAAX Terra Server Picture Coordinates: N 42.3185° W 088.0917° State: Illinois Date Found: 12/29/2007 10:27 am Hunters: Kelly Temperature: 24°F/-4°C Closest Distance: 12.3 meters Round Lake, Illinois - north of Chicago 47.19 miles from home

Green Dot is home. Blue Dot is dashpoint.

Dashpoint Name: Cold Day in a New Subdivision When I first scoped out dashpoints for December, I knew that they were scarce, and I looked at the Terra Server image with the 100 meter circle, and saw this as a farmland dashpoint in an area around Chicago that normally would be well out of my range. As I was planning my dashing morning this morning however, I was looking at travelling 36 miles southeast to a dash 110 meters into a farm field, or 45 miles to the west to a spot that was questionable as to its reachability. I gave Google Google Maps a second look and saw that the image on Google Maps is more up-to-date, showing a new subdivision here. Since this dashpoint was also about 47 miles (76 km) from home and it would be a sure score I opted for this one. After a tedious drive following the Streets and Trips directions, I arrived after a 100 minute drive and found a new subdivision devoid of trees, and a large two story grey house (number 379) that backed up to an open field park called Amaris Park, managed by the Round Lake Park District. Sitting in the driveway of this house, which was apparently empty this morning (based on the drawn curtains and lack of vehicles) I scored at 12 meters. Photos of the house and the sign marking Amaris Park have been uploaded. 3 Game 78 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

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Last Updated:
April 7 2008