#7: [09-Aug-22]

#6: [23-Apr-19]

#5: [22-Nov-15]

#4: [14-Feb-09]

#3: [10-May-05]

#1: [24-Jun-00] (incomplete)

11-Feb-2001 -- Although I found the Degree Confluence web site over a year ago, I finally got around to asking my good friend John to go visit some confluences with me. Being of one mind, he readily agreed. There had been significant progress in that year, however, so only a few local sites remained undone. After extensive research, I reasoned that we could hit the three closest sites in one (really long) day. So, on Sunday February 11, we set out to capture 41°N 77°W, 42°N 78°W, and 42°N 79°W.

We had planned on using both John's Delorme GPS receiver, along with his hand-held model, but the night before our adventure, he remembered that he had left the hand-held with his mother. Oh, no! Well, the laptop model turned out to work just fine, but on future site visits, I will be sure to bring a newer model hand-held, one that can increase accuracy over time (the laptop would go into power-saving mode if we stood still, so we could only get about 12 feet accuracy; well within the project's guidelines, but somehow geekly unsettling).

We began at John's home near Allentown, PA, getting an early start around 7am, and made it to the Lewisburg area right around 9am. After poring over the record given by "j proctor" of his previous attempt at getting this site, we had prepared ourselves for slogging through foresty, though flat, terrain, including a stream. However, we noticed that, according to the three maps we had (street, topo, and aerial), the confluence seemed to be just off a road! Indeed, when we got near the site, it seemed to be very near a driveway. I had gotten slightly confused, and we initially started walking up a hill to the south, so we turned around, and started walking up the driveway behind us. We started homing in on the spot, and found it...

...right in the middle of a house! We were wary about waking the occupants, so we were planning on just taking some photographs of the general vicinity, until we saw a woman and her daughter going to their car! What luck! John talked to her briefly, and she referred him to her husband in the kitchen, who seemed surprised, but enthusiastic, about letting us photograph his house. Fortunately, I had printed up a few copies of the "Letter to Landowners" from the web site, so that made it a bit easier to explain.

The actual confluence point seemed to be inside a small walkway between the garage and house, but the roof lines prevented a good view of the sky, and we were not able to get an exact fix. (Very close, though!)

We were worried about having our results be so different from the previous attempt, but all of our maps, along with the GPS seemed to confirm that we had found the right place. So, with one down, we decided to head on to 42°N 78°W.