Markwell wrote:
> Short report to get in by deadline. Longer report to follow.
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And here it is...
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GD18-BYYL
Coordinates: N 40.1644° W 088.1483°
Date Tried: 12/21/2002 12:15 am
Near Champaign, IL
102.26 miles from home

Dashpoint Name: But it's right over there in that field

I could have gotten it. Really, I could have.

The dashpoint was 250 meters into a farm field on a cold December
day, and a 150 meter run along a property fence line would not have
taken nearly as much time as my wife thought. This was the first
dashpoint attempt on our Christmas trip to Tennessee, but I decided
to be the nice husband and go ahead and take the loss - even though I
could clearly see the point from the spot we stopped: just 250 meters
east of the point. (sigh)

Score 0 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

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GD18-CAIR
Coordinates: N 36.2108° W 086.8588°
Date Found: 12/22/2002 11:17 am
Nashville, TN
382.50 miles from home

Dashpoint Name: That wretching sound you hear is my son

Well, great. My son is sick on our road trip. Gonna have to hammer
down and bypass many of the dashpoints we were originally going to
try. Maybe we'll get them on the way back.

But wait - a drive-by that is ON THE WAY. Surely that can't cause any
problems. So, I decide to take the 155 bypass around Nashville to
pick up 18CAIR. Just as we're getting to the exit that would take us
the 0.30 miles into the subdivision, my son exclaims, "Dad - I need
to pull over!" He takes care of his flu-business, and we leave a
hotel towel along the roadside (sorry you environmentalists, but
there was no putting THAT thing back in my car). I take the quick
trip of the bypass to turn around, and do get the score of the
dashpoint, since it took less than 5 minutes and no one had to exit
the car.

Score 3 points for Markwell and Trailblazers

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GD18-CAOP
Coordinates: N 35.3971° W 085.9767°
Date Found: 12/28/2002 10:44 am
Near Hillsboro, TN
448.39 miles from home

Dashpoint Name: Just pull over here, we'll score

Ah, a nice quick stop along the route to hit a dashpoint. Gotta love
those. This dashpoint couldn't have been easier. We were actually
already on our way to find a virtual Geocache (GC8214) and marked
that one as found at 10:38 on 12/28, and were able to mark within 100
meters on this dashpoint from the road at 10:44. This was just along
side a bridge in a gravel pull out. Nothing too remarkable other than
being very close to I-24.

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GD18-CAKO
Coordinates: N 35.9815° W 086.6593°
Date Tried: 12/28/2002 1:40 pm
South of Nashville, TN
400.21 miles from home

Dashpoint Name: So close you could taste it

Just 30 meters - c'mon!

Nope. Wasn't going to happen. We were off the main roads near
Nashville, already hunting for Dive Bomber (GC1C2B) and we decided to
go for this one. We drove completely around it in a square, and the
topo map showed it near the top of a hill. I kept seeing a weather
radar (like a small dodecahedron or golf ball) where the GPS pointed.
That was promising.

As we wound our way around closer and closer, we found a little dirt
road that lead almost right to it, ending in a driveway. We pulled in
to turn around, and the Mrs. said, "Scored yet?" I looked down: 133
meters. Nope.

The farmer was obviously home. It was a matter of just getting out
and walking behind his barn. But the wife would not hear of it. So we
remained scoreless and went off in search of the nearest Cracker
Barrel for lunch. (sigh).

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GD18-BYUZ
Coordinates: N 37.2106° W 088.4623°
Date Tried: 12/29/2002 8:37 am
Shawnee National Forest, near Paducah on the Ohio River
306.52 miles from home

Dashpoint Name: A dream that was dashed

This was to be the dashpoint that was to make this trip grand. A
dashpoint in a National Forest. But it was not to be.

I had convinced the Mrs that even though the dashpoint was 0.5 miles
from any road, in looking at the topo map is was flat, and in looking
at the satellite pics, it was lightly forested land near the Ohio
River.

Unfortunately, the road the left the main road (see mapquest maps for
clarification) was a forest road, which was gated complete with "no
motorized vehicles" signs. We were supposed to take that road a half-
mile in to make my trek only a half-mile. That made for a mile trek
in, which was not to my wife's liking, considering we had just spent
an hour at the nearby Kickasola Falls Cache (GC34C8)and turned up
empty handed (cache was gone). So, no points for Team Markwell or
Trailblazers

However, on the way to the dashpoint, we were driving around a lake
that had many trailers and cabins along the shore. The lake was like
glass on a Sunday morning early in the winter. Not even a ripple from
a fish. The two uploaded pics for this point showing the lake are
great candidates for front page news. Too bad the point wasn't found,
but as we've all said, Getting There is All the Fun!

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GD18-BYVY
Coordinates: N 38.8355° W 088.3279°
Date Found: 12/29/2002 2:18 pm
Ingraham, Illinois - southeast of Effingham
194.07 miles from home

Dashpoint Name: The little white church in the little town

All right - I've been skunked on 3 of 5 dash hunts this trip. No way
am I passing up a drive-by. Even if it means that we'll be going some
40 miles out of our way. With Mrs and the youngest asleep, I venture
off the highway. 36 crow-miles to go. I hammer down on the country
road that takes us closest. 30 minutes into the trip the wife stirs.

"Where are we?"
"Pretty much in the middle of nowhere on the way to our last
dashpoint for the trip. Want to stop at the Dairy Queen?"
Whew.

We pulled up to the little town of Ingraham, Illinois without much
fanfare. It's a small farming community, but the fields outside of
town have the pumps that resemble birds pecking at the ground. I
presume they're pulling up water, but there are an awful lot of them,
and they've obviously been there for quite some time if the
weathering is any indication. The dashpoint itself lies behind the
parking lot of the Ingraham Baptist Church - established 1894 as a
little one-room church.

We marked the spot 66 meters away and started to drive back out of
town to the bustling metropolis of Effingham to pick up the
interstate highway home, but one other thing caught our eye: At one
of the larger homes on the way out of town, two domestic turkeys were
wandering the driveway. We looked and looked at them (they were
REALLY good sized birds), and their look seemed to state: "Well
that's one MORE holiday season we've missed."

3 points for Markwell and Team Trailblazers
and put us down for having seen two Domestic Turkeys
(no llamas this trip - as hard as we tried).
==================================
Trip Summary:
Animals: Too many cows to count, 2 domestic turkeys, no llamas
Geocaches found: 11
Geocaches not found: 3 (all plundered?)
New Caches Placed: 1
Caches recovered (believed gone): 1
Caches revisted: 1
Travel Bugs Transported: 4
Dashpoints Tried: 6
Dashpoints Scored: 3
Points: 9 for Markwell and 9 for Trailblazers