#8: [30-Mar-11]

#7: [23-Jul-06]

#5: [01-Jan-06]

#4: [22-Feb-05]

#3: [31-Dec-04]

#2: [27-Sep-01]

#1: [08-Sep-00]

28-May-2006 -- This was our first confluence point. We figured that a warm-up would be in order since we are thinking of attempting something more ambitious later. We were travelling around the Flagstaff and Tucson areas and the most convenient confluence point near Flagstaff was 35N110W.

About 20 miles east of Flagstaff the terrain turns very flat and almost no vegetation other than the yellow grass that extends for miles to the horizon. We took exit 294 and the road east quickly turned into gravel through a small town that had houses but not a person to be seen. Eventually we stopped about 2.4km west of the confluence since I had forgotten to bring my printed maps of the area and I forgot that there was a road that did come very close to the actual point itself.

The weather was very dry and very windy - I occasionally felt the grit of sand between my teeth. The terrain as the pictures might suggest was flat with tufts of dry grass in the red sand.

We took the direct route through two sets of barbed wire fences and passed the road that we should have stopped on, but eventually made it to the confluence point. There were cattle grazing in the area which promptly moved out of the way when we approached the CP. Also at this point we saw at a distance a truck driving south along the road closest to the CP and they stopped - maybe it was a farmer trying to figure out what the heck we were doing in such a desolate area? When we turned back to our own vehicle from the CP, the truck sped away.

At the confluence point, the only noticeable scenery was the faint hum of traffic on Interstate 40 to the south. The sound of the wind drowned the noise of the traffic. I also noticed there was a patch of cactus which was in full bloom about 50 meters west of the site. There weren't many of these cactus patches along the way.