#1: [21-Jan-02]

10-May-2014 -- As I had just completed teaching and working at the Wyoming Social Studies conference, and as the focus of my workshops and our exhibit there had been on geotechnologies, including the mapping of field collected data, a confluence visit seemed like the perfect capstone. I made sure that I put fuel in the vehicle at the conclusion of the workshop, as I knew that just outside Casper are thousands of square miles of buttes, canyons, and prairies, and it is best to be prepared before going out there. I then traveled east on US Highway 26 to Wyoming State Highway 256, Cole Creek Road, where I turned northeast. Surprisingly, many houses dotted the countryside, even when the irrigated lands fell behind: They sat on the wide open prairie without a tree in sight. It was great to be in the wide open spaces and I thoroughly enjoyed the views. The pavement gave out but the road continued to be in good shape.

Indeed, things were going so well that what came next was quite unexpected. As I rounded a bend and came to the straight east-west section of the highway, near 42.966713 North and 106.122995 West, straight ahead was a gate barring access to anything beyond. Numerous signs and the heaviness of the gate and fence indicated that this was serious business. A road ran to the north from just about 20 meters west of the gate, but it was (1) extremely rutty, and (2) was posted with a No Trespassing sign. That seemed to settle the matter.

I took a photograph and pondered. Did I have a Plan B? There were still plenty of hours of daylight, this being May and about 6 weeks before the solstice. I could have returned to Interstate Highway 25 and attempted this confluence point from due south of it, from where Highway 22 meets Interstate Highway 25, rather than west of it as I was now doing. However, something told me that the access to the south might be barred as well. I could very well have been wrong, and someday I would like to find out for sure. Today, I wanted this day to end with a successful visit, rather than just have two unsuccessful attempts. I really get quite tenacious about these visits, a trait shared by many other confluence seekers. Therefore, I decided that I would save further attempts at this point for another time: Today, I would, I hoped, have a successful visit at the point 1 degree to the west, that of 43 North 107 West. I was fairly certain that there would be no fence around that point. I thus turned around, drove back to Casper, and then pressed on to the west to this point, my new destination.