2009-05-18 42 -84

From Geohashing
Mon 18 May 2009 in Lansing:
42.6902729, -84.4716312
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About

For the second consecutive day, this graticule's coordinates fell on a Michigan State University farm.

Expedition

excellentdude: Yesterday this graticule's coordinates fell so close to both my home and my office that I decided to walk there. I was so excited when I saw those coordinates because it was a beautiful day, and it might be a long time before the coordinates fell so close to me on such a day when I was available again. It was a very long time. Twenty-four whole hours. When today's coordinates came out, I was somewhat in shock. They were very near my home again, only about 50% farther from my apartment. This time, though, the map seemed to indicate that the farm containing the point was not on MSU's campus like yesterday. The point was near a road, however, so off I went on another geohashing walk with another great day all around me.

As with yesterday, I don't have track logs. So I took several pictures along my walk to verify the route. Along the way, I passed within meters of the previous day's hash. I got another picture, but it really seems too soon to tag the pics with the revisited category. Shortly after passing the old hash, the road I was walking on left town, narrowed drastically, gained an increased speed limit, and became much more rural. Fortunately the traffic was light enough that it wasn't too dangerous to walk along.

As I walked, I passed several more MSU farms. Unlike the previous day where all the farms were crop farms, these farms all had animals for various purposes. I also some some less fortunate animals along the way: a small tribe of road kill. Only one of the three was very identifiable, at least to me. I then turned at the last paved road intersection along my route. To the north, I kept seeing signs for various MSU farms. Today's hash point laid to the south, though. As I approached the point, I began seeing more animals (sheep, donkeys, horses) on the south side of the road. I was happy to find that the hash point was, in fact, on yet another MSU farm. As I began walking down the gravel farm road toward the hash point, I encountered a sign marking the area as restricted. I decided to see if anyone who I could ask permission of was in the large barn nearby. When I walked in, there was music playing and cattle in several stalls. There was a long corridor down the middle of the building, though, and eventually the barn stalls gave way to offices and other rooms. I entered an office and found a man painting in an adjacent room. He couldn't help me, but said someone who could would be back soon. I waited in the office for about ten minutes, getting to know the friendly dog and cat there. The person in question soon returned and quickly granted me permission to access the hash point.

I then proceeded down the restricted road to the hash. There was a pretty orchard across the road from the hash, but I couldn't tell what kind of orchard. When I finally got to the hash, it ended up being a couple meters inside the fenced field. I hopped a nearby gate, got my GPS reading and some photos, and happily went on my way. On the way home, I found that the sheep I had seen earlier had large green numbers on them. I don't know if they were tatooed on or not, but it looked unusual to a sheep-novice like me. I tried to get some pictures of this, but they didn't turn out too well. Farther along on the way home, I got a picture of one of the welcome signs to MSU. I figured it was a fitting way to end this two-day tour through MSU's campus and farms.

Achievements

Landgeohash.png
excellentdude earned the Land geohash achievement
by reaching the (42, -84) geohash on 2009-05-18.
Walk.PNG
excellentdude earned the Walk geohash Achievement
by reaching the (42, -84) geohash on 2009-05-18 on foot, travelling a distance of 14.49 km.
Consecutivegeohash.jpg
excellentdude earned the Consecutive geohash achievement
by reaching 2 consecutive hash points starting on 2009-05-17.
Gift.PNG
excellentdude earned the Ambassador achievement
by obtaining permission to access the (42, -84) geohash on 2009-05-18.

Photos