18-Feb-2010 -- It's still for sale! I wake up in Kingston NY eager for my second full day of confluence scouting in anticipation of International Confluence Day 2010. The first target of the day has been visited ten times in nine different months; most recently by Joseph Kerski in April of 2009. With that kind of record, unless there has been a recent natural disaster or a major development project, what is there left to say? Fortunately, neither of these events has transpired in the last ten months…

I head north on Leggs Mills Road (County Road 31) past the triangle shaped divider where Sawkill Ruby Road crosses I-87 (the Governor Thomas E. Dewey Throughway). The shoulders look a little icy, so I wait to park at a church parking lot a quarter mile to the north. Walking back toward 42N 74W, I see numerous old “Posted” signs along the edge of the woods. When I reach the confluence farm field, the much newer “For Sale” sign indicates the property is still on the market. Having always wanted to own a confluence, this gets my heart racing! As a potential buyer, how can I make a purchase decision without first walking the property? So I ignore the “Posted” signs and head down onto the ground covered with a light dusting of snow.

The large specimen tree just north of the cp, so prominent in the photos of earlier visits, remains the dominant feature on the local landscape. With minor changes in plate tectonics over the years, 42N 74W could be on Lake Katrine just to the south, overlooking the wide Hudson River to the east, or on the high ground of the hills to the west. But, alas, no such scenic location. In winter it’s just a bleak low-lying spot with a fair amount of passing traffic on an early Thursday morning. I decide this is another candidate for International Confluence Day 2010 I can cross off my list. And I also decide 150 acres is much more land then I need to own in the Hudson Valley, even if it does contain the most southeastern land-based confluence point in New York state!

I have one more day to wait before International Confluence Day 2010, and it produces the highlight of the trip. Midday on Friday, I journey to the Village of Florence in the northwest part of Northampton MA to have lunch and a tour of the neighborhood with Alex Jarrett, the illustrious founder of the Degree Confluence Project. Little did Alex know 14 years later, his brainchild would be altering people’s lives, and cause perfect strangers to travel over a thousand miles to track him down! I share tales of failed confluence hunts in Alaska and Nepal, and Alex politely declines my kind invitation to join me at sunrise the next day at 43N 72W.

I head to Brattleboro VT for the evening and am asleep early. Tomorrow, February 20th, promises to be a full day…

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