16-May-2012 -- This was the largest distance to a confluence from my hometown ever...approximately 8,000 km. We were on a trip visiting friends near Newman Lake, Washington State. They live there since 20 years, prior to this they had lived in Newport, next to the border to Idaho. My wife used to be an exchange student there back in the 80`s for a year, so we went from Newman Lake to Newport to visit an old friend of her over there. On our way to Newport near Spirit Lake I switched on the GPS again, because I was aware of the confluence nearby. We had been climbing Mt. Spokane the day before and there, the GPS showed only a distance of 12 km to the confluence. So when we entered Blanchard, the confluence was only 2 km away. So we decided to try to find it although I expected that in these areas access to a confluence can be very difficult.

The first attempt brought us to the Stoneridge golf course where we ended at a fence in 1.3 km distance to the confluence. So we turned and found a dusty road to a small lake. We stopped the car at a bridge and went around the lake towards the confluence. When we were about 70 m away, as expected, we stood in front of a very steep slope. Anyway, I climbed up the hill and managed to get very close but due to the very dense vegetation I abstained from an intensive confluence dance to get all zeros. I took the photos and slipped down the hill. Our trip will continue towards the San Francisco area, where we try to reach N37 W122, before we drive down to Monterey and L.A.