you're right - the issue of photoraphy on military installations always seems to ruffle some feathers. There is a lot of dirt roads and training areas on this base, I have already been "escorted" out of some of them while looking for benchmarks. Most of the time I am in my cammies, so I can just stand fast and usually no one sees me. It was worth the risk though, the scenery of southern California without the crowds of people and plethora of roads and structures is amazing. It is my hope that the untouched training areas will help the preservation of the benchmarks within, but my findings thus far reveal otherwise. about half of the ones I searched for were nowhere to be found.
I found one benchmark from 1939, my first one, mounted in an old bridge of the railway. It took me a few days of walking the old tracks looking for the specific bridge, but it was well worth it. The bridge was overgrown with trees and shrubs, and it turns out I walked over it twice before I realized it was once a bridge!
