A very discouraging day

[ArtMan]

What a miserable day of benchmarking!

 

By my count, my record today was 3 for 18, and that doesn't include the insects, the thunderstorms and the psychic downer of a day in sprawl-intensive exurbia.

 

Centreville, Virginia, sounds like "a nice place to raise your kids up," a small town kind of place. Maybe it was decades ago. Today it's townhouses and vinyl-clad subdivisions and strip malls and traffic, 20 miles or so west of Washington.

 

Because of the enormous amount of construction and redevelopment over the past quarter-century, nearly all of the benchmarks I searched for today in and around Centreville were unfound. A few promising ones were on private property, so I didn't bother looking for them. A couple that I would have thought likely survivors on utility easements also seemed to have gone missing. One, I later found, had been logged earlier by another benchmarker, adding to my humiliation. It and the other missing marks that I suspect were there no doubt laughed at my inability to find them in the rain amid thickets of weeds and debris.

 

For a full day's searching, three isn't much to brag about, even if two were previously unlogged. On the plus side, I did have lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant and enjoyed a big bowl of pho ga (noodle soup with chicken). Pho, which is pronounced phuh, is a major specialty in the DC area, and is a great rainy day meal.

[+jeff35080]

We've all been there and done that ArtMan. Often the hunt can be as rewarding as finding the actual disk. My brother, Readymixer, and I spent an entire one day and only recovered 2, but the search was fun and it was neat to see how the area had developed since the marks were set. Benchmarking is fun, even if you don't always find the disk, you learn more about the history and locations where the mark was set.

 

Jeff

http://www.StarsFellOnAlabama.com

http://www.NotAChance.com

If you hide it, they will come....

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

+++++++HERE SOME POSSITIVE ENERGY++Been there done that now lets go again..+++++++++++++

 

THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE FOREST DOES NOT EVEN LIVE THERE*********WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS*GEOTRYAGAIN **1803-2003 "LOUSIANA PURCHASE" 200TH ANNIVERSARY AND THE "LEWIS AND CLARK EXPADITION" http://www.lapurchase.org http://www.msnusers.com/MissouriTrails

[+Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking]

I sympathize. I had a day like that last fall. I couldn't find a single blasted....And on top of that, one area I searched in was a wildcat dump site with questionable possibly toxic materials according to the poorly marked signs I found afterwards. (Absolutely no CITO!) I discovered it AFTER I looked around for a benchmark. ICK!!! I was tempted to stop looking for benchmarks after that.

 

Now I'm a little pickier about where I search and have since rediscovered the fun of benchmarks. I suggest you go look for a special one, one on a nice old building, one that somehow peaks your interest. The discouraging days, fortunately are few and far between.

 

***************

 

That moss-covered bucket I hailed as a treasure,

For often at noon, when I returned from the field,

I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure.

 

Samuel Woodworth The Old Oaken Bucket