25-Apr-2004 -- 34 N – 85 W Georgia, United States

Visit Date: April 25, 2004

This is the first confluence visit of the Yip-Bannicq Group in western hemisphere. Only Ray was present during his trip to Yip-Bannicq’s old hometown – Atlanta.

April is the best time of the year in northern Georgia – warm but not hot, and all the flowers are blooming. A little line hunting on a balmy Sunday seem to be the best therapy to help get over the jetlag after the long trip from Beijing.

There is no better way to explain to friends what “line hunting” or DCP is all about than do one hunt together. Two good friends Jim Mendline and Bettylou Sherry plus her great dog Rufi made up this hunting party (Rufi is an old friend of Oreo belongs to Yip-Bannicq group with several recent hunts in China).

We settled on 34N-85W, which is the 2nd closest confluence point from Atlanta, and looks like it is far enough to being us to area outside the sprawling suburban influence of Atlanta.

The light Sunday traffic brings us to within 3 km from the point after an hour drive. Only when we get on the secondary road, the surrounding is truly rural Georgia – farms and woods.

Turn out the first road we turn off was the most direct route to the confluence point. After a few gentle turns, we find the confluence point located 240 meters away.

The little track to the confluence point requires the crossing of a railroad. Once crossed, we were in typical Georgia woods, and there is even a pathway leading right to the point. This turn out to be an easier than we bargained for – not enough exercise from the short walk.

The overhead leafs in this wooded area made GPS hard to zero in. The best we can do was 11 meters of precision, and not able to capture a shot of the GPS with all the decimal points on zero as we manage to do in all previous hunts.

We took a more scenic route back to Atlanta through the farming communities. The entire hunt took 3 and half hours.

An easy little hunt is a beautiful spring day. It would been great if Oreo could be with Rufi for the hunt.

Rating of this hunt:

Degree of Challenge: 1 – 240 meters walk (Scale: 1= very easy – almost drive to the point; to 5= a death march – glad it is over)

Scenery: 3 – pleasant wooded areas on a beautiful day (Scale: 1= not interesting at all; 5= take your breath away)

Culture-social factors: 3 - typical rural SE US farming communities maybe very interesting for a farmer from Asia (Scale: 1=dull; 5= most stimulating)