#2: [07-Mar-05]

04-Feb-2001 -- He said:

28NX98W is located in a pasture that has only been partially cleared of brush. The confluence itself is near a creek bed that runs through the property.

We found the nearest point on public roads using directions from mapblast. The confluence is in an area where the land is being sold as "Ranch Estates" of about five acres each, but the land the confluence lies on is a much larger (several square mile) parcel. The pasture was fenced and in use raising cattle. We talked to one of the neighbors, but he didn't know the name of the land owner, so we drove a large part of the fence looking for a gate; and for no trespassing signs. We found neither, so we parked back at the point our maps took us to and took off on foot.

The GPS took us directly into the brush, we ended up following cattle trails and trying to avoid the various barbs the local plant life uses to protect itself. It took us about 40 minutes to make the .36 miles from where we left the car to the confluence.

Once at the confluence we rested for a while, checked the GPS coverage - we were seeing eight birds and getting an estimated 15 feet of error - then worked to locate the exact spot. I shot the GPS, then the four compass directions from the spot.

Heading out, we avoided the brush we fought on the way in and made it back to the car in about 10 minutes. On the way out I got a couple of shots of the area where the confluence lies. We drove back to Houston via San Antonio and stopped to have dinner on the river walk. We had an excellent Sunday afternoon.

She said:

We really enjoy our confluence hunting adventures. For our third confluence we picked 28°N 98°W. This confluence is about 300 miles from our home.

Sunday, Feb. 4th, was a gorgeous day for a drive. The sky was completely clear and driving across Texas you really can see just about forever. The GPS unit was giving us an estimated probable error of 13' for most of the trip. When we got near the confluence we left the highway and started taking County Roads. The County Roads got us within .36 miles of the confluence. We knew from Jeff's topo maps that the confluence would be near a creek. We found ourselves facing a pasture containing a few areas of heavy brush. Of course, the GPS unit took us directly into the heavy brush. We fought our way through the brush and found the creek bed and the confluence. We were both a little ragged around the edges after the encounter with the brush, but, we were still very pleased to have gotten our zero's. We also suspected that Jeff had gotten some really good pictures of the area.

Thanks to Jeff's wonderful sense of direction he found us a much better path back to the road. We didn't have to fight the brush leaving the confluence like we did going in.

We decided to go home by way of San Antonio. We stumbled into one of San Antonio's River Walk restaurants completely by accident and had a wonderful dinner by the river. It was a rather spectacular way to end a successful day.