01-May-2004 -- Well, this confluence was the first of my "six confluences in six states" fiasco this weekend. I live in Orlando, Florida so I flew into Boston, Mass. and obtained a vehicle in which to attempt to visit the six sites in under 48 hours.

I spent the night in Portsmouth, NH which is apparently right on the state line between New Hampshire and Maine. Getting up nice and early at 7:00a, I figured I could tackle the first three confluences/states I had picked out that day. I hadn't accounted for the fact that New England has mountains whereas Florida does not, and it takes longer to get places. And on a side note, when you get into Maine they call I-95 the "Maine Turnpike" and charge you tolls every 50 or so miles. Constitutional? No.

I trekked up the Maine Turnpike towards Bangor and the 45N/69W confluence, which hadn't been visited in about 5 years. Also, the first visit wasn't all that comprehensive as far as photos or narrative, and Selective Availability was still in effect, so it made for a ripe target.

I got off I-95 at town called Newport and took State Road 11 north to State Road 7. I then cut east at the town of Dexter using State Road 94 and eventually, got into the small town of East Corinth. There was a couple gas stations, a fire station, and not too much else. This area's really agricultural, not as woody and densely forested as I thought this part of Maine would be.

First I tried to get to the confluence by taking State Road 43 east out of the town, and then south on a paved/eventually dirt road. I ended up a little more than 500 meters away from the confluence, but No Trespassing signs were posted and a few houses were around, so I decided to try it from another direction before resorting to landowner permission.

I headed back into the town of East Corinth, then took State Highway 11 south and tried a couple roads that headed east as I got towards the 45th parallel (halfway between the North Pole and the Equator). After wandering around in a trailer park and a dead end road, I eventually found a road that lead right towards the confluence and put me within 600 meters. The road was dirt but not all that bad, I managed without any trouble in my regular old car. It kind of makes a circle around a homemade basketball court, then heads back into the woods towards what seems to me to look like an area in which a few tornadoes cut paths through the forest. I'm sure that's not what it is, but that's what it looked like to my untrained, non-forestologist eye.

I got out and circumvented a large muddy area and headed back along one of the tornado paths, which kind of made a nice trail back into the woods. I walked underneath some powerlines and finally some actual tree cover about 200 meters from the confluence. With little trouble I made it to the spot. The forest is not dense at all and it's a real nice walk back to it.

I took some pictures of the area and headed back to the car around 1:00p on the warm spring day and on to state number two for the trip, New Hampshire.