25-Jan-2001 -- I bought a GPS receiver recently for a trip to St. Louis, and shortly afterwards found out about this website. A group of friends and I, all undergraduates at the University of Kentucky, decided to go after the confluence about 35 miles west of us, and so left campus as soon as our classes were over at 2. After a pleasant 40 minute drive, we turned onto a little road called Anderson City Road. It was paved, but was only a couple of feet wider than the average driveway. We drove about a mile, and stopped at the only house in sight. We asked the farmer there if the satellite photos off the web showed the confluence on his land. He affirmed that it was, and asked us about how we were planning to get out to the confluence. Our mapping software had shown a small local road turning off of Anderson City Rd, and approaching within .17 miles of the confluence. We told him that we planned on getting as close as we could via that road, and then hike the rest of the way. Unfortunately, he said that the only road in that direction was a rutted tractor trail. My little '92 Camry would definitely not have enjoyed that path, especially with about 2-3 inches of snow still on the road. The farmer then told us to drive a little further up the road we were on, pull off when we saw a red tabacco barn, and hike down over the ridge into the field where the confluence was. We thanked him and left, and soon found the barn. I parked the car, and we began hiking through the woods in the general direction of the field. The GPS of course couldn't pick up a signal in the woods, so until we cleared the forest we merely hiked in the general direction. After about a mile and half hike, we began to see glimpses of a large corn field through the trees. We turned down from the ridge, crossed a couple of small, slightly frozen streams, and walked out into the open field, hoping to then confirm that it was the proper one with the GPS. I booted my laptop back up, but to my horror, the laptop couldn't even detect the presence of the GPS receiver (a Delorme Earthmate). We reasoned that something had been jarred loose during our hike, but that nothing could be done about it here. We recalled from the satellite imagery of the site that the confluence was situated very near the intersection of two drainage channels which ran perpendicularly through the field. We hiked to where we thought the confluence was, and snapped all of our pictures. For the heck of it, I removed one battery from the GPS, put it back in, and tried to get one last fix on our position. To my great surprise, the laptop immediately detected the receiver and within a couple minutes had fixed out position. Our dead reckoning had placed us about 5 steps from the actual site of the confluence.