Subject: us2ma3be4grnesh literally nailed<br/>
Date: Apr 20, 2005 @ 05:10<br/>
Author: aletheia kallos (aletheia kallos &lt;aletheiak@...&gt;)<br/>
Prev&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Post in Topic&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Next<br/>
<a href="17437.htm">Prev</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Post in Time&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="17439.htm">Next</a><br/>
<br/><br/>
<div id="ygrps-yiv-861296662">& she fully deserves the long shorthand for giving me<br/>
such a good runaround <br/>
but frankly never resisted enough for me to even<br/>
consider stopping<br/>
<br/>
& of course i couldnt very well have stopped for<br/>
anything so inconsequential as film anyway<br/>
so here again no pic will be forthcoming for awhile <br/>
tho the visit was by most reckoning pure class a<br/>
& even rewarded me with a souvenir for nailing it<br/>
as i trust i will eventually explain<br/>
tho it was such a convoluted & wonderful try<br/>
i must tell it all in the proper sequence<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
the dash across grsh toward grnesh was a bit of a<br/>
puzzlement since i am not very familiar with this part<br/>
of the greater great barrington area<br/>
<br/>
in fact my own personal greatest greater great<br/>
barrington area has always been quite small<br/>
<br/>
& my topo prints for both eggrsh & grnesh were<br/>
confined to the immediate triarea in each case<br/>
<br/>
& i had nothing but inadequate mental mapping for the<br/>
necessary bridgework to get from 1 triarea to the<br/>
other<br/>
<br/>
nevertheless<br/>
i was only going for the preliminary punctoscopy <br/>
so i figured i could well afford to just bumble along<br/>
& around <br/>
until i chanced to recognize myself somewhere within<br/>
the desired bullseye<br/>
or rather to recognize anything from the topo in the<br/>
field of my actual experience<br/>
<br/>
& this sounds easier than it looks<br/>
& is a very strange & fun way to travel in any case<br/>
but in this case the area had undergone so many<br/>
changes from the time of the topo mapping <br/>
& there were so many other gratuitous anomalies like<br/>
name shifts & outright changes etc<br/>
that it was extremely hilarious <br/>
as well as extremely fortuitous that i ever even found<br/>
my correct topo quad<br/>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=18&n=4669041&e=640687&s=50&size=l&datum=nad83&layer=DRG25">http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=18&n=4669041&e=640687&s=50&size=l&datum=nad83&layer=DRG25</a><br/>
<br/>
just to give you an idea of the difficulty<br/>
compare the following up to date mapquest offering for<br/>
the same area as the above outdated topo<br/>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&addtohistory=&formtype=address&searchtype=address&cat=&address=291%20Aberdeen%20Rd&city=New%20Marlborough&state=MA&zipcode=01230%2d1772&searchtab=home">http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&addtohistory=&formtype=address&searchtype=address&cat=&address=291%20Aberdeen%20Rd&city=New%20Marlborough&state=MA&zipcode=01230%2d1772&searchtab=home</a><br/>
<br/>
& consider for example that i was intending &<br/>
believing i would be entering the topo quad on cross<br/>
road at the lower left corner <br/>
since i had found & was actually following a different<br/>
& unconnected cross road nearby<br/>
while having no idea this cross road had been cut off<br/>
& dead ended in both directions at 3 mile pond as well<br/>
as renamed knight road on the east side<br/>
<br/>
i also had no forewarning of the completely new loop<br/>
road off this new knight road called aberdeen road &<br/>
on which the mapquest offering is centered<br/>
<br/>
so when i first chanced onto knight road & followed it<br/>
to its dead end just inside sheffield<br/>
i had no idea i was anywhere near my objective<br/>
hahahahaha<br/>
but had to first back out & circle around to the well<br/>
marked roadstone on grne to the north before getting<br/>
my first inkling that i had in fact landed on my<br/>
target quad<br/>
<br/>
& even continued northwest from there into great<br/>
barrington another mile or so <br/>
still in shock & disbelief<br/>
before i could finally confirm that i had passed<br/>
entirely across my target quad without knowing it<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
so i returned to knight road <br/>
finally beginning to grasp that it may once have been<br/>
but no longer was any cross road at all<br/>
<br/>
& i proceeded to cross nesh for a 3rd & 4th time on<br/>
knight road without realizing it<br/>
just before the dead end<br/>
while the adjacent & most important aberdeen loop was<br/>
still utterly mystifying me<br/>
until i passed the same man with 2 red dogs for the<br/>
second time<br/>
<br/>
& when i waved to him & stopped <br/>
he came over to ask if he could help me<br/>
tho a little too pointedly<br/>
reminding me in short order that these were private<br/>
roads etc etc<br/>
<br/>
& of course it took me a while to disarm him with<br/>
laughter<br/>
but he finally proved to be about as helpfully<br/>
knowledgeable as any local could be expected to be<br/>
which is to say that with careful pumping & attention<br/>
by me <br/>
he gave me all the data i needed to make my point<br/>
while assuring me that it almost certainly didnt exist<br/>
<br/>
& that even if it did exist i would never find it<br/>
because nobody would ever give me permission etc etc<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
& with that help plus the further confirmation of the<br/>
stream that runs alongside nesh a few hundred feet<br/>
inside new marlborough i next proceeded confidently &<br/>
directly up the driveway of mr & mrs peter gay at 291<br/>
aberdeen road<br/>
which the mapquest serving places a little too far<br/>
southeast<br/>
& waved tentatively to the lovely mrs gay & waited for<br/>
her to come over to me before apologizing for the<br/>
intrusion & proceeding to explain my quest<br/>
<br/>
which lit her up right away<br/>
since <br/>
as she explained<br/>
she was already personally acquainted with the grnesh<br/>
rock & rather fond of it herself<br/>
ever since she or they discovered it just beyond their<br/>
property line<br/>
<br/>
& mr gay then came out of the house to see what all<br/>
the fun was about <br/>
& they invited me to park the truck & be guided<br/>
personally by them to my destination in the nearby<br/>
woods<br/>
because they said the rock is so perfectly camouflaged<br/>
that it still often eludes even them<br/>
tho they know exactly where it is<br/>
hahahahaha<br/>
<br/>
& so grnesh was hardly there when we found her<br/>
another reclining beauty <br/>
tho of the 19th century undressed ilk<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
what was most remarkable about her tho<br/>
unbelievable in fact<br/>
was that her top dimple was garnished by a rusty 10<br/>
penny framing nail <br/>
that was standing vertically <br/>
balanced or fused at its pointy tip alone<br/>
upon the head of a similar nail that had been driven<br/>
solidly into the top dimple of the rock<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
& as i made my customary culminating reach for the<br/>
tripoint position itself <br/>
neglecting the fact that the dilapidation of the rock<br/>
had compromised its accuracy <br/>
& thinking to return to review that matter in due time<br/>
i reached out to touch in this case the head of the<br/>
precariously balanced nail<br/>
which however proceeded to separate from the monument<br/>
& practically jumped into my open hand<br/>
<br/>
so i not only homed perfectly in on my point like a<br/>
guided missile<br/>
without any real resistance having been offered in the<br/>
entire course of an incredibly complicated & intensely<br/>
strange love affair<br/>
but i was able to bring her home with me as well<br/>
<br/>
& i will make a scan of the nail for you too as soon<br/>
as my mouse revives<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
but that was still not all she wrote<br/>
for i had found several rocks i wanted to check in the<br/>
local boundary bible at the great barrington library<br/>
& was just able to get there at breakneck speed before<br/>
it closed at 6pm <br/>
to learn grnesh dates from 1853<br/>
<br/>
which is a bit of a puzzlement <br/>
since all 3 towns date from the 18th century<br/>
but a nice enough way to finish the day<br/>
<br/>
to be continued<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
		<br/>
__________________________________ <br/>
Do you Yahoo!? <br/>
Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!<br/>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide">http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide</a></div>