31-Dec-2005 -- This visit was actually motivated by Joseph Kerski's recent report of his visit to 41N 101W in Nebraska. In his report he noted that of his nearly 100 confluences visits, it was his first one during the month of December and December was the only month he had not made a confluence visit. That was an interesting metric so I checked my 65 visits and discovered I was in exactly the same situation. I had visits in every month except December. Today was the last day I could remedy that until 11 months from now so with Cheryl as navigator, we set out to visit 38N 77W. Interestingly Mr. Kerski had also visited this confluence only 3 months ago.

From previous reports and the satellite imagery I was anticipating a half mile or so hike from Essex Church Road to get to the confluence. When we arrived, the whole area was crawling with pickup trucks and males of all ages in orange hats and vests toting rifles. This did not bode well for a confluence hunter dressed in jeans and a black jacket running around in the fields near the woods. Cheryl was relieved when I pretty much gave up on attempting to get to the confluence this time. As we were returning on Essex Church Road I stopped beside a pickup truck parked beside the road to ask what was going on. Two very friendly men (John and another whose name I didn’t get) told me it was an organized deer hunt. When I explained what I was trying to do they looked at my maps and satellite images and after some cogitation figured out exactly where the confluence was. They said there was a good field road that went very close and because of the hunt, the cable barring entrance would be down. They then said “Follow us; We’ll take you out there.” I jumped back in Allison (my 95 Acura Integra) and we followed them to within 150 yards of the confluence. I jumped out, grabbed my camera and hustled across the now fallow field to where my GPSr immediately locked onto all zeros. I quickly took more pictures (photos #1 through #4; east, west, south, north respectively) and returned to the two vehicles. We chatted for a few minutes more about the DCP. I then thanked them profusely, returned to Allison, turned around in the field and returned to Essex Church Road extremely happy that I had been able to complete my mission.

Curiously we also saw the asparagus farm with Christmas trees noted by the Bowman/Tuttle visitors in February of 2004 as we were heading back to Fredericksburg on the way home.