Only Googlebot Reads This Blog: Long Way Round

Showing posts with label Long Way Round. Show all posts

Sunday, June 08, 2014

Long Way Round: Superman

The following post is one of many that documents the adventures of a family of bears as they turn a 10 hour road trip into a week long adventure while on their way to GeoWoodstock XII in St. Charles Missouri. If you are not up to speed, check out the introduction here.

Sometimes the best adventures are the ones you stumble on to. A case in point:

During Geowoodstock I met a caching/travelling blog duo who go by the name +Peanuts or Pretzels. I mentioned my plans to visit objects celebrating Pointless America, like the twine ball. They mentioned they came across a giant Superman Statue.

I was intrigued, but didn't get to excited about it We already had an extensively planned trip, and it likely wouldn't fit into it. Oh well, maybe next time etc.

We actually planned on doing the entire 10.5 hours in one stretch, to see if the kids were up to so much time in the van at once (turns out, they handled it no problem), so we were not planning on any side trips - I wasn't even planning on geocaching.

On Monday we were driving home from St. Charles. 3 hours into our journey, thru road-weary early morning eyes, like a beacon of hope and light, I saw a sign that said "Superman Statue Next Exit".

I immediately turned on my blinker and switched lanes to take the exit.

My wife was napping in the passenger side. As I followed the "Superman statue this way blah blah" signs, she opened her eyes. I said "Superman Statue". She smiled approvingly.

The statue is off the interstate a few miles, in this pleasant town square of, appropriately enough, Metropolis Illinois. It is, lets say, larger than life:

The statue is very well done. Not only is the stand is on large enough for someone (like my wife, in this case) to take a photo without having to step into traffic, but it also includes a few steps up for the photographer to get a better angle. Brilliantly thought out.

I figured such a location had to have a geocache nearby, but since I hand't planned on caching that day I didn't have anything loaded up. However a quick online search showed one was 300ft away... an ammo can no less! Couldn't be a more perfect impromptu experience.

It was a fun little outing, and it only took 15 minutes out of our way. Just goes to show that sometimes stepping off the planned route can lead to some fun memories.

So this is the very last entry for Long Way Round. The only thing to add is that this evening we slept well in our beds at home. Don't worry tho, we're already planning our next adventures.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more adventures of a family of Canadian bears exploring their world.

<== Bigfoot | Back to Inroduction ==^

Saturday, June 07, 2014

Long Way Round: Bigfoot

<queue over-excited announcer voice>
SUNDAY!
SUNDAY!
SUNDAY!

Monster trucks! Bigfoot!

SUNDAY!
SUNDAY!
SUNDAY!

On the sunday after GeoWoodstock it rained. It rained a lot. Go to the Ark sort of rain. As a result we decided to drive around and see what we could see.

Turns out, when you are in St. Louis, you can see a bigfoot. Specifically, the monster truck. The Bigfoot team has a location here (it was closed so I don't know if its there headquarters or not). Outside of their location they have one of their many trucks on display, as well as this funky tracked vehicle:

Zeke loves monster trucks, and he has several of them, so there may have been squeals when he saw the truck.

This is a simple road side attraction, so there isn't much more to say, except this: I cannot claim to have seen a Sasquatch, but at the next tea party I attend I am going to be able to tell everyone with a straight face that I have seen a bigfoot - and isn't that reason enough to visit here?

<== Tiberius | Superman ==>

Friday, June 06, 2014

Long Way Round: Tiberius

Cache. The final frontier.

These are the voyages of the Geovan Of Destiny.

Its continuing mission: to explore strange new lands, to seek out new finds and new dramatizations, to boldly go where at least one person has gone before.

Not going to lie to you. This post is all about geocaching. Specifically it is about my adventures with a 3 stage multi-cache that celebrates the future-past of geekdom everywhere.

In Riverside Iowa there resides a stone marker. It is not to mark the resting place of the dead, but the future birthplace of a hero. Our hero. Captain James T. Kirk, USS Enterprise.

Spoiler alert: Like more classic Star Trek episodes, this one starts and ends on the bridge (if by bridge you mean the passenger seat of the Geovan of Destiny) and the middle is filled with drama, adventure, and just a little bit of humour.

The first stage led our crew to this rather cool looking model of the USS Enterprise. It was christened the USS Riverside NCC-1818, so we know it is not the real thing. The first stage is to gather information from around the site. Gathering this information was quick and easy, and we were soon on our way to the second stage.

The second stage led us to the marker shown above. Again, gathering information was quick and easy. Unfortunately it also involved math, and that is where things started to go awry.

Really what happened is I assumed too much about the format of the data, and I ended up with an off-by-one error. The first calculation led me to the front yard of a farm 2.5 miles away. The cache description said clearly that the final was in a park, so clearly I made a mistake.

I ran the math over and over again, but came up with the same numbers. On the fourth or fifth try I finally figured out my error and calculated new coordinates - which were in a park 0.3 miles from the second stage.

Sanity restored, I plotted a new course and we were off at warp speed (warp being re-defined as the posted speed limit). We then found ourselves in a parking lot just over 0.1 miles from the cache.

Crew maintenance needed to be performed, so I formed an away team of one and headed down the trail. Things were looking up, but they were about to take another turn for the dramatic.

The logs for the cache had mention of a fair amount of bushwhacking, so I was not overly surprised when 100ft down the trail my compass pointed me across a small creek up a steep hill, and deep into the woods.

A quick hop over the rushing water, and a scramble up the hillside led me to this view:

This was a cool abandoned vehicle. Unfortunately it was just outside the park boundary, and the compass was pointing beyond it. I was, after 200ft of walking, no closer to the cache. It was at this point that I realized that my compass was not calibrated and was leading me astray.

A quick sensor recalibration later and I was back in business. Unfortunately I was left on the wrong side of a creek bank, up a hill, 500ft away from the cache, with nothing but bushwhacking for a path.

These things seldom slow me down, and this was no exception. I scrambled over and down the bank, jumped the creek bed, and finally got to ground zero a few minutes later, having turned a D2 into a D3 for no apparent reason but lack of foresight.

A quick hunt later and I soon had the cache in hand.

The log signed, and the cache rehid, I then walked down the perfectly cromulent path that led me easily back to the Geovan of Destiny.

This was one of the last caches I would find until we arrived at St. Charles for GeoWoodstock 12. So with a dramatic declaration of victory we laid in a new course, and headed off at the legally determined safe warp speed.

A little later on I geeked out a bit and made this bit of fan art based on the model at the first stage.

So the astute reader would note that this series was the road trip that brought us the long way round to GeoWoodstock. However we still had to get home, so stay tuned for a couple more posts about the adventures of a family of bears as they return home from a week long adventure.

<== American Pickers | Bigfoot ==>

Thursday, June 05, 2014

Long Way Round: American Pickers

Some days on the road seem to, without any planning or forethought, develop themes of their own.

So far today (Wednesday), we had visiting the memorial to Buddy Holly, visited Field Of Dreams, and now we were going to visit the American Pickers store.

The theme, it seems, is pop culture.

American Pickers, if you are not familiar, is a show on the History channel. It features two guys who search the back roads of America looking for hidden treasures of Americana and other historical artifacts that are buried in the back of barns, and in basements. They purchase them, and resell them to their customers. The show, while I am sure at times contrived and scripted, is based on their existing business, which is called Antique Archeology.

To polish off our tour of pop culture locations in Iowa, we visited the original store in Le Claire IA.

The store front is pretty much what you see on the show. Today it had a funky 3-wheel, one passenger car in the parking lot.

The first thing you notice when you walk in the store is this funky street graffiti style logo above the cash register.

The second thing you notice is that the place is packed full of things. All old things, many of them still rusty and dirty. Many of the items I recognize from various episodes of the show. There are too many things to mention (tho the following collage shows off some of them), but there are very few things that are not odd or unique in some way. Some of the things are for sale, some are not.

Also in the parking lot is one of the vans that the guys use on the show.

If you watch the show you will recognize the following car. It is often featured in the little transition scenes shown between segments. What they never mention on the show is that this car holds a secret. For in the trunk is a large letterbox hybrid geocache.

It is fun to visit a place you've only seen on TV. It is also cool to know that, while this is a TV show, it actually is based on two real guys and one real business, and that those same two guys are still roaming the country side in search of the treasures and hidden items lurking in the backwater locations of America.

As a geocacher I can certainly understand the attraction to that sort of thing. As a person with dreams it is inspiring to experience, if ever so briefly, the home base of two fellows who are chasing theirs. Inspiration, it seems, can be found everywhere, it even lurks under dirt and rust.

<== Field Of Dreams | Tiberius ==>

Wednesday, June 04, 2014

Long Way Round: Field Of Dreams

In 1989 a movie about a farmer who hears voices and ends up building a baseball field, was released. Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones , became an instant classic, with the famous line "if you build it they will come".

As it turns out, they actually did build the baseball field in a cornfield, and now you can be the one that comes.

The field build in 1988 for the filming of the movie was maintained by the owners of the farm, and is now a tourist attraction.

To this day people all over the world visit this very well manicured field to relive their glory days. When I learned that this was a possibility I put visiting the field immediately on my list, cause: nostalgia.

Really, none of us in the family are sports people. I had to explain how baseball worked to my 4 year old. But we still had some fun playing "baseball", like when my wife took the pitchers mound.

Zeke loved running the bases, tho it took a while before he would run them in the right direction.

At one point Debbie slid into third, but Abigail got her out.

Even the stands are still there. The field is maintained as a tourist trap, and is open for anyone to play ball there. Aside from a yearly game, there are no scheduled games played at this field.

At one point I decided to see if I could hit one of Debbies pitches.

Turns out, when I play fantasy baseball, I can knock it out of the park. Go me!

It is really kinda fun that Field of Dreams is a real place. Actually Iowa has a lot of these places, as you've seen in my previous post, and in the next two posts. However you'll have to wait for those, so until then...

Play ball!

<== The Day The Music Died | American Pickers ==>

Tuesday, June 03, 2014

Long Way Round: The Day The Music Died

"A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while"

On February 3rd 1959 Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper, fresh from a concert at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake Iowa, took off in a small airplane into a snowstorm. A few minutes later the plane was spotted going down.

"But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step"

A search party was sent out at first light, and it was soon confirmed that the plan crashed in a cornfield, and all hands, the three musicians and the pilot, were killed.

"I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died"

This whole story (the historical one, not the one in this blog) is captured, poetically, in the immortal song entitled American Pie by Don McLean.

Today a memorial stands in the cornfield where the plane went down. During this road trip we had the chance of making a pilgrimage to this famous location and pay homage to the forefathers of rock'n'roll (and to also claim the two related virtual caches). This was a chance I could not pass up.

We parked on a lonely gravel road at the edge of a farmers field. A dirt path followed the fence line, around the edge of a cornfield, 4/10ths of a mile to the site.

The memorial sits along the same fence line, and is very appropriate considering the musicians involved.

"Now for ten years we've been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin' stone
But that's not how it used to be
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me"

Nearby is the memorial to the pilot. For some reason I cannot figure out, people have been leaving used cards there: credit cards, gift cards, hotel cards, student cards, etc. I am sure it means something, but I have no idea what it may be.

"Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again"

"And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed"

The kids, of course, have no idea that this is a memorial, but they did understand that what they were walking on is a gigantic sand box, which they made good use of, much to the squeals and delights of the youngest.

One of the best things about geocaching, and going on adventures, is coming face to face with history. This, more than most, was an amazing journey back to an important point (literally and figuratively) in music history.

As we drove off from this site, as an homage, we played American Pie a few times on the radio.

"We started singin' bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye..."

"... and singin' "This'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die"

<== Get Lost | Field Of Dreams ==>

Monday, June 02, 2014

Long Way Round: Get Lost!

Ever been told to get lost?

Sometimes it hurts, but it can also be one of the best ways to explore a new area.

After we checked out the Biggest Ball Of Twine In Minnesota, we were dangerously close to the kids nap times. They still had some energy left, so we made a tactical decision... hit a rest area where they can run around and burn off the energy.

So 10 minutes down the road we did just that. This rest area featured a large meadow, in the middle of which was a large hill (100ft high ot so) with a picnic area at the top. Around the edges of the meadow was a forested area (really, it was one of nicest rest area I have ever seen). So my wife and the kids went up the hill to play, and Yours Truly went to find some geocaches.

Before I headed off, I grabbed this panorama shot:

So now the kids were ready for nap time, so we tossed them (gently) into the Geovan of Destiny and headed down the road once more. We were 45 minutes away from the hotel, but we needed to give the kids a couple hours to nap. This was the moment where my wife told me to get lost. So we did.

We turned off the GPS, took a left turn down a random road, and started driving. We ended up driving along some really nice country roads like this one.

Our method was to simply follow a road. If we got to an intersection we randomly chose straight, left, or right, and kept going.

Pretty soon it became apparent that we were in the middle of Wisconsin Farm Country, and there were plenty of picturesque farm steads all around us, so I made it my mission to find the best shot. This was my first attempt - not bad, but a lot of shiny bits. I was looking for that traditional red barn look.

Along the way we found out why the dirt roads were so good - maintenance!

The next farm - a nice red barn, and a happy face (Bob Ross would approve), but I could do better, I am sure.

We came down a really remote dirt road and stumbled on this scene. It was an almost perfect farm stead. However it was a little too far away for my little camera to capture properly.

We turned the corner on the above farm and ran into this one, just one concession down the road. This was as good as it is ever going to get for Minnesota farm steads (at least for this trip).

After a few miles of random left and right turns we decided to head back to the hotel, as it was getting close to supper, and we still had a hotel pool to swim in before bed time.

On the way into Minneapolis (which, by the way, has some of the worst rush hour traffic I have seen in quite some time), we ran across this funky looking house.

So the next time someone tells you to 'get lost', don't take it as an insult, take it as an opportunity.

Sometimes getting lost is one of the best decisions you can make, especially when you're heading the long way round.

<== The Biggest Ball Of Twine In Minnesota | The Day The Music Died ==>

Sunday, June 01, 2014

Long Way Round: The Biggest Ball Of Twine In Minnesota

When I started planning for the Long Way Round, I looked all over the map and asked myself "what things do I want to be sure to see?" I built a list, and mapped out all the possible locations. I even mined the virtual lists on geocaching.com more more ideas.

I had a really good list, but something was missing. It nagged at me for weeks... I was overlooking something obvious... something vitally important.

Then, like a bolt from the blue, it hit me, like the front grill of a '53 DeSoto.

I wanna see the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota.

'Cause it's the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota!

This is what a dream looks like from the outside - also what
the most reflective glass in the world looks like
when taking a photo of a twine ball through it.

Suddenly the entire trip came into focus. It had a purpose. I was going to go to the mecca of Pointless America! (the thought being that, while America has contributed many vital and important things to the world, this isn't one of them).

So I added the twine ball to the list of must-see places, and even re-juggled the schedule to ensure we had an extra day to go see it.

So I loaded up Weird Al Yankovics song on my MP3 player, tossed the wife and the kids into the Geovan Of Destiny, and headed down the road to Darwin, Minnesota.

The day we actually visited the ball, which was a Tuesday, it seemed like a dream. I couldn't believe I was about to visit the monument, nay the epicenter, of all that is holy and pure with Pointless America. Even the kids were excited.

Zeke would ask for the song to be played, and I was only happy to oblige. We would sing along, and every once and a while you'd hear a little Abigail voice from the back singing 'sota! 'sota!

So when we arrived we all piled out of the car and rushed over to see the majestic sphere, which sits under a makeshift pagoda.

We came to see the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota!

Then we saw the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota!

There were two things that immediately went through my mind. First was "Oh man, I can't believe I am here, and this thing actually exists!" and "Jumpin' jack rabbits, that is some seriously reflective glass they put around that thing!"

The kids did like the ball, tho I think they liked their reflections better ;)

Seriously tho, no idea how they got such highly reflective glass. I didn't think such a thing was possible (but it is!). There was no angle I could find that allowed me to take a clear shot of the twine ball without taking an impromptu selfie, unless I got right up close to the glass, in which case I could not get the entire ball in.

As a result, this is the best shot I could get of the ball itself:

So, some stats: The ball is about 12ft wide, weighs 17,400 lbs, and contains a metric crap-ton of twine. It took 29 years of daily winding to get it to its present state, starting in 1950, by Francis A. Johnson. Since he also died 29 years after he started it, one presumes the ball is not the embodiment of his final vision (or, my pet theory, he was bat-crap insane).

Either way, it stands as the largest ball of twine in the world that was created by one man. Apparently there is a bigger ball in Kansas made by committee, but I discount that other ball, cause nothing good ever came from a committee.

The town of Darwin, lucky host of the twine ball, has built a museum, and I was happy to note that the Twine Ball Inn exists across the street, just like the song.

By the time we finished admiring the ball, and singing the log on the nearby geocache (strategically designed to be my 2900th find - yay milestone), it was getting closer to lunch time. So we headed across the street to a family restaurant called A Blue Moose Grill.

When we placed our order my wife asked for an extra plate (for the kids to share their meal), and the waitress/owner replied with a "you betcha!", which is about as Minnesotian as can be (based on my years of listening about Lake Wobbegon on A Prairie Home Companion), which made me happy. It also gave me the "we're not in Kansas anymore" feeling, mainly cause we didn't come from Kansas, and we had a vastly superior twine ball right outside the door.

On the way home we stopped by a really nice rest area so the kids could run around, and I could find some more geocaches. One of which was this really cool tribute cache to the biggest ball of twine:

This was a nice ending to a day filled with twine ball appreciation activities.

So if you find yourself bumming around the upper mid-west, and you are getting bored, there is only one place you gotta go'ta. Its the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota.

You should see the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota!

<== Viva Wisconsin | Get Lost ==>

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Long Way Round: Viva Wisconsin

One of the best parts of taking road trips is going to places you have never been to before. So far this trip have been to places at least one of us has previously experienced.

This was all about to change, for we were to enter the brand new territory of Wisconsin.

We planned to stay overnight just outside Milwaukee. This means that by the time we finished finding the oldest geocache in Illinois, Beverly, that morning, we would end up in Milwaukee for lunch, and give us the afternoon to explore the city.

Being geocachers we probably didn't explore the city as normal folks, but normal is boring, so we didn't mind so much.

The first thing we did when we hit town was infiltrate a secret spy safe house.

The Safe House is a spy themed restaurant, and "theme" is a misnomer. The place lives and breathes spy stuff. You even need to know the secret passphrase to get into the place.

Zeke spent some time exploring the front door before we were able to gain access.

Once inside the place is full of spy memorabilia... movie posters, props, crazy spy cliche things like secret doors and one way mirrors, and even some actual artifacts from real life spies.

It also has a geocache.

They keep in in a secret place (behind the bar I think) so this was the first time I ordered a geocache from a waitress. I literally said "Hello! I would like some deep fried cheese curds, and a geocache please." Her response: "Yes sir, I'll go fetch that right away".

And she did!

The deep fried cheese curds were also delicious, if you were wondering.

After the feast we took a walk along the pathways that line both sides of the river that runs through town.

We ended up at another cache near a statue dedicated to all those hard working US Postal Service workers. This was also the cache where Abigail signed her first log.

The cache led us down the road to another statue, so we moved on to find that one... some of us with a well earned victory swagger over her first cache log signing.

We ended up at a statue of The Fonz. Author Fonzerelli himself (in statue form). I touched him - he's still cool.

From there we did some more exploring. There was a pedestrian bridge that went across the river. Zeke loves pedestrian bridges so he asked if we could use it. The bridge went from the second floor of two buildings, so we went off to find out how to get on the bridge. Getting on it proved to be easy, getting back to the street on the far side proved to be more interesting, and we ended up a whole block away before we saw outside again.

From there we got back into the Geovan of Destiny and cached our way to the hotel.

The next day we kept going west. Wisconsin is famous for cheese, and we didn't want to leave the state without consuming some fomage de la Wisconsin, so we stopped by a cheese store.

Then it rained. Oh the rain. Basically it was extremely wet for the entire day. We found out when we got to the hotel that night that there was a record rainfall of 2.5 inches - previous daily record was 1.5 inches.

As a result we spent most of the day driving, and not a lot of adventuring. We did have a lunch of cheese and crackers at a rest area tho:

The rain did put a damper on the day a bit, but thats OK - it was the last time the rain had any significant impact on our schedule for the entire trip. We spent the night in Minneapolis, which brought us a whole bunch of new adventures, so stay tuned!

<== Naperville | The Biggest Ball Of Twine In Minnesota ==>