06-Jun-2001 -- Well, it was quite a nice day for a motorcycle ride, not too warm and a little cloudy. It took me about two hours to get to my "staging point" - that's my motorcycle near the house. Thanks to Mapquest I was able to find my way there pretty easily, but unfortunately instead of the confluence being just off the road as the map predicted it looked like it was about three-quarters of a mile away, through some pretty dense pine forest. It had just rained recently so there was a lot of mud, but fortunately I came somewhat prepared. I took off walking.

One thing I had not thought to bring was bug spray. I seem to have journeyed to Eastern North Carolina at the height of deer fly season, so I had to continually try to keep them off of me, but still ended up walking in a cloud of the flies. I found an old dirt path that headed in the general direction, but eventually I had to strike out into the woods.

After about half a mile I came across a corn field right in the middle of the forest - I was sort of amazed, since there was no apparent way to get any heavy equipment like a harvester into the woods this deep. I skirted my way around the field and walked through some more woods, and then came upon yet another, bigger corn field. I knew I was getting close, and had to actually walk through this corn field. Just on the other side of this one, about 20 feet or so into the woods, was the confluence. My GPS got down to .01km away, so with error I figure about 15 meters or closer.

By this time, having taken about an hour to find the spot, I was quite hot and sweaty and not looking forward to the trek back out. Lucky for me, I found an old road (so THAT'S how they get the harvester in!), and it only took 30 minutes to get back out, although I still had to deal with those deer flies.