GD6-03986
Coordinates: N42.0509° W087.9445°
Rough Locale: West-Northwest Chicago Suburbs, Illinois, USA
Date/Time: Wednesday, Dec 26, 13:00 CST (-6:00)
Dash Trip Name: The First Day After Christmas

While the dashpoint itself was pretty uneventful, the trip to the
dashpoint brought back many memories, as well as some poignent
locations to those unfamiliar with Chicago's suburban layout.

The first prominent feature was a "known hazard" while attempting
this cache on December 26. The Interstate access to the main off-
road is an intersection that allows the only Interstate access to the
nation's largest indoor mall (in number of stores - and yes, it's got
more than Mall of America): Woodfield Shopping Center in Shaumburg.
Woodfield has become notorious in Chicagoland as the place to avoid
at all costs from two days before Thanksgiving (late November) to at
least January 2. Fortunately, the resulting traffic made an
immediate left turn on the exit ramp, as I continued on to the
frontage road for about a mile north of the mall.

Just turning east on to Golf Road (IL-58) I noticed the corporate
headquarters for 3Com, (www.3Com.com) maker of corporate phone
systems. Outside the building was a very interesting sculpture, half
submerged in the ground. Since I'm still waiting for the arrival of
my digital camera, I couldn't take a picture like I would want, but
the 3 ring logo can be seen here...

http://cache.3com.com/www.3com.com/images/legacy/en_US/rings.gif

On down the road, I came across a wonderful memory of years ago. My
wife and I listen to the WGN Radio Superstation in Chicago and
several years ago won a dinner at a very posh restaurant. We hadn't
had cause to return there, but I still remember the melt-in-your-
mouth 3-inch (7cm) thick steak filet I had there. Magnum's Steak and
Lobster is located just east of 3Com on the south side of IL-38.

Also on the way to the dashpoint was the northern edge of Ned Brown
Forest Preserve of Cook County, Illinois. This is a fabulous Forest
Preserve, complete with its own captive Elk Herd. There are actually
two Geocaches in the park, Moving Target (GC1683) and Row, Row, Row
Your Boat (GC11E7), both fabulous visits as I had found them both
this past summer.

The dashpoint itself was fairly uneventful, resting in a town named
Mount Prospect, IL (pop 52,300). The point lies in a little
neighborhood north of IL-58, with a park nearby. If you go to the
LostOutdoors.com map on the Terraserver photo, you would see the park
with two sandy areas - one a baseball diamond and the other a
playground. The zero mark was in the back yard of 502 Sunset Road,
but the road south of the point got me within 62 meters. With it
being only 15°F (-9°C - and a normal high this time of the year at 32°
F, 0°C), I was glad to only score this as a drive-by dashpoint.

On to January for Game 7!

Markwell
Non omnes vagi perditi sunt