#14: [12-Nov-17]

#15: [26-Nov-16]

#13: [13-May-15]

#12: [14-Feb-13]

#11: [01-Nov-12]

#10: [05-May-12]

#9: [17-Jun-11]

#8: [17-Dec-10]

#7: [21-Feb-10]

#6: [06-Feb-10]

#5: [08-Sep-07]

#4: [24-Apr-05]

#3: [02-Jul-02]

#2: [05-Oct-00]

27-Dec-1999 -- My sister and I split my parent's house just before 9am. We loaded my camera, the laptop, the GPS, and the power converter into my mom's litte Honda CRV and headed out. Our first stop was the shopping center around the corner from my folk's house. We shipped off some of our more awkward Christmas gifts, and then Deb got an iced coffee. After that, we were on our way.

I hopped the toll road, FL-417, north towards Sanford. There, the highway ends and we got onto FL-46 west and followed it along through a huge game preserve near Mount Dora. In Mount Dora, we hit US-441 and followed it until we found US-27. We honked north until we found the confluence.

US-27 is a wide, four-laner. It wasn't much of a problem finding the area where the confluence lay, but finding the exact site was just a little troubling because of our usual enemy: selective availability. After parking the car on 151st Lane (which was just a dirt road), I needed to walk towards the east off the highway, and south of 156th Lane. I'd be in the brushy undergrowth of the trees along side the road, past where the manicured highway right-of-way ended.

I hiked valiantly into the brush, and was proud to find that I had again remembered my compass. Of course, I didn't know what the deviation was down here in Florida, but a slightly wide reading was much nicer than no reading at all.

Waltzing through the woods, we stumbled on a couple of omnious dead trees; you'd have to guess that they were struck by lighting, the way they were charred, standing, and split. We also found what was apparently the lower jawbone of a wild boar. Maybe that guy is right; maybe there should be an official mandible for every confluence. Ours is in Photo #3.

We rattled around a bit before getting any stable readings. Because of the variance induced by selective availability, I couldn't pinpoint the site too well. The trees and growth weren't helping, either. But Deb was excited to try and find the point exactly. We continued to try and triangluate, but between the light tree cover and the disorienting effects of selective availability, we weren't able to nail the spot with much more precision than shown in Photo #2: we were at 28 degrees flat north by 81 degrees, 59.995 minutes west, about 26 feet, seven inches away.

I decided to call the reading good enough, and then we popped out near the highway and marched north, back towards the car. I took Photo #1 just as we emerged from the forest; the cars there are right on the highway. Photo #4 shows the strip of US-27 that's in the area of the confluence.

As I snapped away, Deb tried to get a better reading, but I urged her on. We wanted to drive quite a ways to the next site, and it's easy to waste daylight by wandering aorund in the woods in seach of the perfect reading.

Me, though, I longed to drive a little bit more around the local area. 151st Lane was on the map clearly, but was very much a dirt path. Where did it lead? Did it turned paved, back in the woods? Would there be some sign that we were on property that was actually owned by someone? Those questions would have to wait, too, and we hopped back in my mom's truck and cut one more light north on US-27 before turning left onto Sunset Harbor Road. It would lead us just a mile or two West, where we'd join US-301 south and proceed to the next site.