400th waymark listed.

I just had my 400th Waymark accepted. It ended up being the Rolls Royce Neon Sign that I listed. I posted several others this evening, including a History Museum, 2 Bells, a Caboose, a Professional Sports Venue, a topiary, a Unique Steeple, a Static Aircraft Display and an Exact Replica which was a cross post of one of the bells.

This past weekend while gathering those, I also managed to visit a few Waymarks as well.

Along the way I took some pictures of a couple of other sites, that I thought I could fit into a category, but now I'm not so sure. Specifically there is the Field of 6' tall Concrete Corn in Dublin, Ohio (can be seen here, here, here, here, and here). This was a public arts project to memorialize Central Ohio's agricultural beginnings, and to symbolize the corn fields, and homesteads that stood here before they decided it was a good place for highways and office buildings.

The other is locally famous "Art" sculpture/sign/whatever (can be seen here, here, and here). It's located at the Columbus College of Art and Design in downtown Columbus, OH. It stands probably about 50' tall, and bridges the street there. The local folks like to have fun with it. There is one perspective where photo can be taken with a couple of light poles that can be made to look like the letter "F" in front of the "art" sign.

Waymarking Visits....

I just got off tonight's Waymarking chat....a little abruptly since I lost my connection for some reason....and there was some pretty good dialog this evening.

One thing that was brought up was the requirements for visiting Waymarks. Most seem to be in favor of reducing or eliminating visit requirements. This is something that I completely support personally. Sure, there is a possibility that folks could "cheat" or that people will just log their visits with "TFTW," however that's not something that really concerns me. If people want to log a visit on my Waymarks when they haven't actually been there, that's their problem, and their loss. It really doesn't effect me in any way. With the quick logs of "TFTW," again, that's the visitor's thing. If someone isn't inspired to write a novel about a Waymark of mine, that's certainly understandable. I don't expect everyone to love the Waymarks I've posted....people are entitled to their own opinions.

I think that fewer requirements will help new folks better embrace Waymarking. If we keep telling people "Sorry, that's not good enough. You need to do this and this, and post a picture showing this...." then folks aren't going to want to try to visit, or post Waymarks anymore. Certainly, it's nice to see folks post photos with their logs, but there are still plenty of folks who don't have digicams, and don't want to figure out how to use one. There's no reason why I should exclude anyone from playing just because they don't have the want, or means to post photos. In the long run I think most will still post photos, and really, it'll make the photos that DO get posted that much more of a surprise, of sorts. I don't like having to meet special requirements to tell others that I visited a Waymark. To me, it's about being there and experiencing the location, and arbitrary and difficult photo requirements actually take away from the experience for me. I'm more worried about meeting the requirement than reading the sign, or looking at the sculpture, or whatever.

Of course this doesn't really apply to the "Waymarking Games" department, since many of those are set up a certain way that would still need specific requirements.

On a side note a few folks were discussing traveling to various parts of the world to go Waymarking, and to visit other folks. I've been thinking about doing the same. Especially since Skybus came to town earlier in the year. $10 airfares to many major cities makes it much more attractive to travel around just for the heck of it. I don't know how much they've been advertised in various destination cities, but there has been a lot of talk here, since they're based out of Port Columbus International Airport.....so I invite all of you in, or near their destinations to come out to Ohio for a day or two. :)

Hockey is back, and weekend Waymarking

Tonight I was in attendance of the Columbus Blue Jackets first pre-season game, against the Nashville Predators. I wish I could say that I was excited about this year's team, but to me, it looked a little lack-luster this evening. To their defense, there have been some pretty big changes in the organization from the top down, and they only had two days of training camp before the game. They're also trying out some new lines this year. One in particular that should be interesting is Rick Nash and David Vyborny being centered by Nikolai Zherdev. In the past Zherdev has been a wing, but they decided to try him in center since he's always had a tendency to center the puck anyhow. Unfortunately Vyborny left the game early tonight with an injury to his left leg. Nashville's Martin Erat made a cheap hit on Vyborny. Vyborny laid on the ice for a few minutes, but was able to get up and skate off, although he was assisted by a few teammates. Last I heard he was taken to the hospital, and nothing is going to be released, or decided about his condition until morning. All in all, it should be an interesting year. Hopefully they can make it to the playoffs this year, and lose the title of being the only team to have never been to the playoffs.

This weekend Dewgrl and I managed to grab a few Waymarks. On Saturday we had only planned to go out for some breakfast at an Amish style restaurant in a near by town. After we left there I decided that I wanted to grab the two Ohio Historical Markers in Madison County. After marking the second one I wanted to go to nearby London, Ohio, to Waymark the courthouse, but we decided to head out to Springfield instead to see the Madonna of the Trail out there. In all we got the two historical markers, a few cemeteries, an infamous crime scene, a few Zinc headstones, a solar power location, an outdoor warning siren, and probably a few that I've forgotten. I haven't posted most of them yet, simply because I've been lazy, but I'll probably get on that soon. Over all it was a beautiful day. It was much cooler than it has been recently, and it was nice and sunny. It made for some good pictures.

Nothing much new.

Last week I was on vacation with no real plans of any sort. I spent most of the week visiting a few places around the area, and driving some of the backroads to get there. This lead to visiting so smaller rural towns with a few Waymarks along the way.

I've already posted a couple of Lustron Homes in Team Farkle 7's new category. I've been interested in this since it was first brought up in the forums. It was something that I never knew about, and found there were a few in some nearby towns. I also grabbed a few new Ohio Historical Markers, a lighthouse, a unique weathervane, and a few others that got me some new icons.

In addition to that Dewgrl and I spent some time up in nearby Marion, Ohio. The Marion Area Convention and Visitors Bureau up there is have a contest of sorts called Marion's Amazing Treasures. Basically they have a list of various interesting and historical sites in and around Marion. You visit them and get either a stamp or sticker on a "game card." There are locations that are manned, such as the Union Station, and those that are unmanned like the Harding Memorial. The manned stations involve speaking to someone or taking a tour to get a sticker, and the unmanned stops have a green wooden box that has a small stamper inside so you can stamp your own card. Depending on how many of the 30 squares you check off, you qualify for various prizes. Many of the locations we were already familiar with, but some we were not. Either way it was still interesting to visit the various locations. It worked out well that I was on vacation...Dewgrl works nights so we were able to get to most of the various museums and such that hold odd weekday hours. There are still a few we need to visit, so we're planning to wrap it up this weekend.

Aside from the running around I got a little caught-up on my W'marking backlog. I mostly went through and posted those that are in categories I hadn't covered yet to get some new icons. I still have plenty more Waymarks to get through, so I've got some work ahead of me still.

Racing, and jumping through hoops..

I haven't been posting on here much lately because I've been somewhat busy. There have been a few new caches to go after, Dewgrl has recently found a love of rockhounding, I've been going up to Mid-Ohio for some races, helping my folks build a shed, and catching up on my W'marking backlog. The weather has been fairly hot lately as well, so I've opted to minimize my activity outdoors. It's pretty much typical for Ohio in late July-August, but it's been a mild summer up until now so it just seems worse than it is. The other day my thermometer was reading 101.5°f. Some of that is due to radiant heat because of where the outside sensor is located, but it wasn't too far off. Plus the humidity has been way up there. I also observed that this past winter my thermometer recorded a low of -17.1°f, so we've had nearly 120° difference in temperatures.

This past weekend I was at Mid-Ohio with my brother and sister-in-law for the Honda Supercycle Weekend. I've watched a few superbike races on TV, and have always wanted to go up for this event, but just never made it. I was there on Saturday for practice, qualifying and a few races. After getting sunburned at the last 2 races I've been to up there, I thought I was doing everything right. I picked up a light, long sleeve, fishing type shirt, put on jeans instead of shorts, and had on my everyday ball cap. I forgot to put any sunscreen on the few exposed areas thought and am suffering the result. I ended up with a decent burn on my face and neck, resulting in some blistering on my chin...maybe next time I'll remember the sunscreen!

As I also mentioned I've been working through my Waymarking backlog when I've had a few free moments. For the most part everything has gone smoothly, and most of them have been posted in categories that I've posted in before, so no big deal. This evening though I posted one in the Rails to Trails category. I didn't realize it before I went to post that they require one to not only upload pics to the gallery, but to also post them in the long description as well. I know that some folks do this on most of their Waymarks anyhow, but it's not something I'm accustomed to, nor regularly practice. I guess it wasn't too much of a big deal, basic HTML is easy enough, but it just seems unnecessary. Uploading into the gallery or posting in the description, one or the other, would suffice. It just seems arbitrary to require both. I did so to meet the requirement, but I'll think twice about marking, next time I come across some rail trails.

A few new postings

I finally managed to hunker down and get a few more Waymarks posted this evening. I've been meaning to work on them for a while, especially since I grabbed a ton of new W'Marks this past weekend.

This weekend started out as just going to a nearby farm market, in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, to see what they had to offer. Dewgrl and I make it out there every couple of weeks. Interestingly in going out to this market we pass near at least 3 other farm markets that are much closer to home. We just like this one since they have a large variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, and baked goods. The main reason we drive about an hour, instead of 5 minutes to the nearest one, is their selection of organic, grass-fed, free range meats. For me personally it's not that I'm some eco-snob or anything, I just prefer the taste, and it tends to be lower in fat and cholesterol....which is a big plus for me.

Anyhow, neither of us had anything to do on Saturday, so we decided to explore a few cemeteries that we always pass on the way to the market. We both like to explore old cemeteries for the history they offer...plus we were Waymarking them, and looking for Zinc headstones as well as Revolutionary War veterans, and bells which frequently appear in local cemeteries. We then decided to make a drive down to another cemetery in Kirkersville, Ohio, about an hour further away, that we had tried to find before. Along the way we managed to find an anchor, a few more cemeteries, and an Ohio Historical Marker. From the cemetery outside of Kirkersville, we traveled up into Granville, Ohio to grab some lunch. On a whim we stopped at an old Victorian themed cafe. I got a tuna melt, which I greatly enjoyed. Dewgrl got some turkey panini sandwich thing...I think, which she wasn't too fond of. After that we walked around the main part of Granville to grab a few Ohio Historical Markers, a bell, a few National Register spots, a museum, and some other Waymarks that escape me right now. We then headed back toward home, stopping along the way to check on one of my caches, and Waymark the spot, since it's a covered bridge, and on the National Register.

Sunday started out with a trip to the nearby Olentangy Indian Caverns. After taking a few Waymarks, and the tour, we headed up to the town in which I grew up, Prospect, Ohio. We planned to take a look at their progress in demolishing the Truss Bridge that I had Waymarked here. It's sad to see this go. It's really about the only thing this little town had in regard to history. As I mentioned on the Waymark page, to some it may have been just a rusty piece of metal, but it was a source of pride to the townspeople.

From there we were going to visit the Prospect Cemetery to mark the Zinc headstones there, since there are at least 11 of them waiting to be marked. We didn't make it there though. We ended up getting sidetracked by a few other little cemeteries, then decided to save it for another day, even though we passed right by it on the way home.

blah blah blah....racing...blah blah blah

It's been a little while since I've posted here. Mainly because I've been busy, I haven't had much time for Waymarking or caching lately. I did manage to get up to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course this weekend, and Waymark it, but it wasn't my main goal in going there.

Normally I head to the Pontiac Excitement Nationals for the pro NHRA drag racing, at National Trail Raceway. This year the moved it a little further away to Norwalk Raceway Park. I haven't been to that track in years, and I kind of wanted to go up there since they've updated the place, and this is the first year they've held an NHRA event. On the other hand I've always wanted to go to Mid-Ohio, since I've never been there but heard plenty about it. My father grew up near there and if I remember correctly he worked there for a little while during his youth. I've never asked, but I sort of suspect he may have raced there, or at least been around the track. He mentioned before that he knew the original owner very well, and my dad owned several different British sports cars when he was young...so putting 2&2 together....Anyhow, like I said, he talks about Mid-Ohio frequently, and I always wanted to get up there. I guess I always thought I wouldn't enjoy it as much since I always enjoyed drag racing, and NASCAR so much. I've watched plenty of road course events on TV, and found it a little hard to follow.

So I was left with the choice, drive almost twice as far and pay over twice as much for a ticket to go to Norwalk, or go to Mid-Ohio for the Vintage Grand Prix. Cheaper all the way around won out, and I have to say I'm really glad I changed my "tradition." I enjoyed the racing, the track and the atmosphere immensely. I think I've even found a new favorite racing genre. I guess seeing it live is a completely different experience. I now see where road courses are much more about the driver and the track, than it is about the cars. In drag racing, and NASCAR, a poor driver can still do well if the crew can manage to dial the car in just right. It just doesn't seem to be as much of a challenge to the driver when compared to road courses. Mid-Ohio was just a great place to spend a day. I also found that the food and souvenirs were cheaper than what they've been at most other races I've been to, so that was a nice bonus.

Today was spent cleaning up my Jeep and putting the interior back together so I can sell it. I don't really want to get rid of it, but I rarely drive it anymore, and can use the garage space, so it's gotta go.