In the summer of 2006 we made a trip to London and visited the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. While there I picked up a fuzzy little souvenir I intended to use as a Travel Bug for geocaching. Thus was born “JH, Junior.”
JH, Junior. was named for John Harrison (1693-1776). Harrison was an English clockmaker who perfected an accurate chronometer, leading to more accurate measurements of longitude. Harrison’s life and work are detailed in an excellent book by Dava Sobel entitled Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time.
JH, Junior’s stated goal is as follows:
JH Jr. began life at the Royal Astronomical Observatory in Greenwich, England. He travelled across the Pond to see America. JH would like to cross as many lines of longitude going WEST as possible, then return to his home at the Prime Meridian.
After bringing him over from Greenwich, JH was placed in a local travel bug depot cache, and has now made it all the way to Portland, Oregon. In between he has stopped in Tennessee, Oklahoma City, and even put in an appearance at GeoWoodstock VI. So far he has traveled a total of 3620 miles, not counting the hop over from England. Here’s an interactive map of his travels:
…and if you have the new Google Earth Plug-in, you can view his travels here…
Rumor has it that JH Junior may even be making a trip to Japan in the near future!
[tags]geocaching, travel bug, John Harrison, longitude, Google Earth[/tags]
Google plug in does not support Firefox 3. Boooo!! Hiss!
Yeah, I just discovered that myself. Not happy!
I dropped off a travel bug in Georgetown 6 years ago, and it’s still going strong 23,000 miles and multiple continents later. Pretty amazing.
Wow! That’s impressive! I’m hoping mine will last that long.