#6: [08-Jun-24]

#4: [31-Jul-05]

#3: [28-Sep-03]

#2: [13-Sep-01]

#1: [10-Jun-00]

21-Nov-2010 -- Finally! Ten zeros near Detweiler – Lentner Road.

When one of your hobbies/ passions/ accomplishments is visiting all of America’s national parks, as long as new parks are being established, your task is never truly complete. So it was that with the coming of park # 393, River Raisin National Battlefield Park, which was declared a unit of the system on October 22, 2010, a trip to southeast Michigan was added to my future plans. The new park, in the city of Monroe near the western end of Lake Erie, commemorates one of the worst defeats of American forces in the War of 1812.

Coming up from the south through Ohio, the Buckeye State offered us much fresh confluence hunting territory along the way, but my ideal target was somewhere on 83^o W, a line of longitude I had not yet visited. [Confluence points within the “lower 48” United States extend from 68^o West to 125^o West, and with ten additions to my confluence list in 2010, I have now visited cp’s on 62% of them…] I chose a point in pastoral Seneca County, and the resulting experience made me wax poetic:

Stopping by Mrs. Detweilwer’s woods, after Frost

”Whose woods are these?” I ask a man,
“There on the aughts I wish to stand.
To seek consent, it would seem smart;
Where lives the owner of this land?”

“You’ll find what sets her home apart:
Her use of junk cars as ‘yard art.’
It’s Ms. Detweiler you need to see;
House on the corner - good place to start.”

Four others have preceded me.
They all found foliage thick on trees,
So a “zeros post” remains undone:
Might Fall’s bare branches hold the key?

”Your task would seem a foolish reason,
To tramp these woods in hunting season.”
“We’ll wear red, and keep eyes peeled;
A gunshot wound would not be pleasing!”

We skirt around an empty field,
Where fresh plowed dirt, deer tracks reveal
Then into the woodline we advance,
Close watch on the GPS I wield.

Careful not to tear my pants,
I dodge the thorns and start the dance,
‘Til only aughts our displays show:
In woods drab, light, thin – to my glance.

So, success in Ohio:
I’m proud to add the “all zero,”
But still I have miles to go,
Homeward bound, with miles to go…