the summary report of our full day of play retrying
us2ma3be4hapiri
is
our previous best try of a fairly uncertain class c
visit within stone throwing range has been upgraded to
a rather comprehensive class b coverage of the now
well guessed exact spot
because we were lucky enough to meet someone who saw
the stone marker still protruding from the pond bed as
recently as 1950 & even attached a new finder pipe to
it at that time
which however has since rusted away just like its
predecessor
but he confidently directed us to within 10 feet of
the exact location
& we diligently searched the specified target area
where we found all our tools inadequate & out of their
depth
& so we still havent recovered the marker absolutely
but have hatched a whole new hope of eventually
touching it class a
which i will explain in its logical place in the story
but basically what happened is we were discovered by
the owner
russ clark
while we were rafting & searching his pond
oops
& admittedly just hoping it might be public
but after he asked us rather ominously what we were
doing there etc
& i explained apologetically that we were looking for
the 3 town marker
& asked if he was perhaps aware of it
he lit up as he explained yes indeed but he hadnt seen
it since the day his grandfather excitedly discovered
it some 55 years ago
adding he himself was unimpressed by the 8x8 granite
post at the time
with the capital letters h & p & r chiseled into its
sides
as he recalled
but he was obviously rather tickled to find people
looking for it again after all this time
even if he still couldnt understand why
& tho he was busy with some heavy equipment operators
there himself
making his time obviously quite valuable
he couldnt help getting interested in our maps etc &
involved with us
& said we really needed a gps receiver & went into the
house to get his
but found the batteries were dead
he said he pilots yachts around europe with it & that
it is accurate to within about 3 feet
which surprised me since i figured 100 feet is
standard commercial range
so it must have been of unusually high quality
but he said i needed to get him the geocoordinates
from a reliable map first anyway
he added we should have been there a couple of weeks
ago when the water level was as low as he had ever
seen it
i told him i was
& figured it was an all time low too
as i had in fact visited about 10 times already
he looked at me a little funny with that
but i quickly recovered by saying i would be delighted
to pursue this with him at a time that was more
convenient for him & at a lower water level too
so we exchanged phone numbers
& i promised to get back to him with the coordinates &
to rejoin him whenever he would like to pursue it
from there i proceeded to the local emporium of paper
topos in order to acquire the needed data
& was also helped by the sales clerk there to the
corresponding data provided by a national geographics
electronic program
in utm & both nad datums
which i will now proceed to check against the values i
can pull from the topos
before getting back to russ with them
but i was just so excited i wanted to tell you what
was happening first
attached are a couple of pix of our respective class b
visits
taken from different angles but believed to be about
equally accurate
followed by a close up of our rig
if it looks like i was lying down on the job
i really was
& not only by predilection but because it was easier
to push the probes while flat on my back or face
but i am hoping russ will make it even easier by
providing the yacht of his preference next time
__________________________________
Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.
http://farechase.yahoo.com