What A Depressing Hunt...

[mloser]

I just returned from a trip to northern Connecticut for a soccer tournament for my daughter and thought I would grab a few benchmarks. So I downloaded the nearby quadrangles and printed them out, then actually loaded one into my brand new Garmin GPSMap 60CS, and during break(s) in the games, out I headed. To begin with, I was a bit depressed that such an old area of the country had few old marks--most seem to be dated 1978 or newer. But, I reasoned, at least they would most likely be there! How wrong I was! I managed to locate 4 of 16 marks I searched for and got so fanatical about actually finding ONE that my family worried about me for a bit!

The first mark I searched for was 200 feet from the soccer fields. Not there--the road had been widened. One up the street (they seem to be placed every quarter mile in that area) was also MIA... and on it went...

Everywhere I went there was evidence that a street was widened or something had changed. Even when I found nothing disturbed there was still no station. I thought I would search for a 1979 triangulation station, and spent some time in a wooded area talking to the renter of the property about the marks. He had lived there in 1979, and in fact was mentioned in the description, but knew nothing of the marks. At another location there were two (TWO! 2, dos, zwei) witness posts, yet I could NOT find the station.

I refused to claim the town's water tank, which was visible every time we drove to the soccer fields, until I had found an actual disk! LOL

I was more successful in Boston, where we went after the tournament, but I didn't have the time or proper transportation to search for many marks. I only managed to find marks that had already been located by Geoaching members.

 

Well, I am back to Pennsylvania hunting, where my failure rate is not 75%!

Edited July 1, 2004 by mloser