26-Nov-1998 --
A visit to some friends in Virginia put us a short side trip away from
this confluence in Stuart's Draft, Virginia. Being a confluence addict, I
couldn't pass it up. Fortunately, my wife was happy to turn off the
highway for some scenic driving on this bright day. After wending our
way around various rural routes, we approached the confluence area. It
appeared to be close to the road in the middle of a pasture (photo #2).
As we approached the pasture from the road, I got out the GPS receiver,
which indicated that the point was actually several hundred
feet within. Some neighborhood kids were tearing around the field on
motorcycles, so I decided that walking across would be acceptable.
My wife stayed behind with the optical camera to take pictures from a
distance, while I approached with my trusty digital camera. I arrived at
the confluence point amidst a flurry of kiddie-biker activity and
quickly snapped a digital photo of the GPS unit as evidence (photo #3).
Much to my horror, the battery in the camera died right after that! The
kids were closing in on their bikes, and I admit I felt a bit like a
cross between Jimmy Stewart in "North by Northwest" and John Cusack in
"Better Off Dead" being pursued by the killer paper boy ("Two
Dollars!").
With my camera dead, I could only hope my wife came through
with a shot or two of me standing at the point. Luckily, she did (photo
#1). I am the small black speck in the middle of biker boy (to the left)
and his faithful dog (to the right). I scanned this photo at a higher
resolution and applied some rudimentary image processing to afford this
blow-up of me (photo #4) at the confluence point, either checking the GPS
receiver, or madly trying to get my camera to take one last picture
before the bikers swept by again. Carefully avoiding the cow droppings,
I high-tailed it out of there, another confluence point under my belt.