16-Sep-2025 -- I took a unique approach to this confluence, which lies in a cornfield southeast of the village of Marquette. On satellite imagery I could see that there was a water treatment facility of some kind on the northwest corner of the cornfield, but when I looked at the signage on Google Street View I discovered that curling around this facility to the west is a gravel driveway leading to the community yard waste burn piles. So that is where I parked at 12:07pm on this glorious 85°F Tuesday afternoon, nearly hidden from road view by the surrounding corn and fencing.

I entered the field of nearly dry ten-foot corn stalks at the southeast corner of the burn pile area, roughly 200m from the confluence. I knew I had to go one pace east for every two paces south. Since the rows of corn were oriented north-south, my eastward progress was slower, trying to find gaps in the stalks to hop rows so as not to disturb the crop. The ground was moister than expected, although the field didn’t appear to be irrigated. My shoes were quite muddy and my socks quite wet by the time I arrived at the confluence and zeroed out. On the ground was the fodder from last year’s corn crop, indicating that crop rotation must not be occurring here on a yearly basis.

As I exited the way I came, arriving back at the burn piles, I discovered the biggest tick I’ve ever seen crawling on the front of my t-shirt at about my sternum. A quick check of the rest of my body turned up nothing else, thankfully. I was back at my car at 12:32pm, 25 minutes after starting. This was my third “corn-fluence” of 2025, the other two also along this same parallel in Missouri (rain!) and Iowa (just this morning). I’m becoming a pro at corn row navigation! But I’m not itching to do another anytime soon – I prefer a blustery winter trek across barren land. It’s just how this confluence journey happened to fall as I road trip from Michigan back home to Colorado, post-Ironman and ready for the next adventure.