2 FBMs and a Trig

A glorious day in South Devon for a bit of bagging today.  First off was a treat - a FBM near Beer Quarry.

I would struggle to find some of these if it weren't for the helpful commentary supplied by other baggers.  It also makes me realise that my alleged eccentricity for needing to find these lumps of concrete pales into insignificance to others.  If you read down the links for this FBM one bagger writes "I walked up from the Youth Hostel where I had stayed the previous night as part of a challenge I have set myself to stay in the Youth Hostels in alphabetical order. Do not ask me why as I have not got an answer for that one."

Next was a forlorn trig in a hedge.  Somewhat damaged at the top and got an extra hug from me for that (OK, perhaps I am slightly nutty).


And the trio finished with a new, to me, FBM, a Berntsen.   Nothing terribly exciting to look at really, but makes me happy.  And the views across to Portland were magnificent.

A peek inside.

Flying Nautical Charts

Chart Art

If you can't navigate on them or use them for situational awareness, why not use as art.  A create idea for unloved Admiralty charts.  Love it.  Perhaps I can persuade some of the team to make us some? 

Lives on the Line

The tube map style is used for many types of art.  For example, the tubular fells, UK motorways or this wonderful map of the world, tube style  (just adding it to my Christmas list).  This recent map, lives on the line, is a new way of depicting life expectancy in and around London.  

Sheep Shuffling

And finally GPS has been used to prove that sheep huddle more when faced with a predator.  Now that makes perfect sense.  I think I'll try that, except I don't really look like a sheep.

New York (She's got the whole world in her hand)

After 3 weeks in the States I am still not out of the habit of walking past buildings with my eye level approx 40cm above ground level looking for benchmarks.  However, occasionally I look straight down and find them.

But sometimes the geo goodies are a tad easier to spot.  This is the Unisphere out at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

For one moment I had the whole world in my hand.  Fortunately I let go before I created havoc.

It's a great globe - with 3d topography.

And today we popped into the New York Public Library to view their Mercator 500 exhibition.  It was more of a display cabinet but its small nature was more than compensated by the magnificent map room in which it sat.


My ideal looking bookcase - atlases, globes and framed maps above.

My daughter loved this huge atlas.

A lovely globe.

Fascimiles of his early work.

Smooting

Spent the day in Cambridge today.  Found a Harvard trig point.

Small but sweet.

Was stumped by this mathematical clock.  I can work some of them out - and obviously I know the answers - but 1, 3, 11...?

And the treat of the day was discovering the Smoot measurement.  Harvard Bridge is 364.4 Smoots +/- an ear.

Smoots are marked all the way across the bridge.


How cool is that?

Washington II

Just a couple of other geo spots on our US vacation.

Visited Annapolis yesterday and came across this wonderful chart store.  Isn't it great?  The only point at which my family rolled their eyes is when I asked if their charts were in metres or fathoms.  Come back in a few weeks as their website will be far better organised, they told me.

Walked up to the historic US centre of power, the Maryland State House.  Imagine my excitement (not my family's) to find this.


Actually perhaps I'm not insufferable as my husband pointed this next bag out to me and suggested we go find.  Unfortuately there is a temporary security cordon in place at the moment so this is the closest we could get to the Zero Milestone.  Wish I could have actually read the inscription.

Washington I

Just some random pictures from our first few days in DC.  No theme except standard geo-geeky undertones.

First off, super-sizing trig pillar bagging.  It's actually still closed from the earthquake last August.  No flush bracket.

Went up the Old Post Office tower and looked down on Pennsylvania Avenue. Liked the street map of the Federal Triangle area.

And then today we visited Great Falls Park.  As a chokepoint of the Potomac, when the river swells from ice melt or similar it just soars - up to 40/50 m.  This sign post marks how high the highest water levels have been over the past 80 years.  To put this in perspective, the post is over 40m above current water level.

There is a surveying stone somewhere around here from which they controlled the building of the Patowmack canal - but it was somewhat overgrown so I wasn't able to spot it.  The map I was working from was pretty unscaled too so I quickly gave up thinking I could be chasing a nebulous mark all afternoon.  Bizarrely my husband was keener to find it than I.

This afternoon saw us at the Udvar-Hazy Centre to plane and spacecraft spot. I have been there before so wasn't gagging for a second visit but the family were keen. And, anyway, it's always nice to see an SRTM radar.

Le Trig Francais

Well, hardly. My daughter has a French pen friend over this week so in honour of l'entente cordiale I decided that she needed to see a British trig. OK, I'm a bad liar, we just happened to be in North Devon and I found a few I hadn't yet bagged... We visited my family who are staying in a holiday cottage near Hartland Point. My brother, daughter, said pen friend and I marched off towards Hardisworthy this afternoon, a mere 1.5km from their property. The views across to Lundy were fab as (hold your breath Brits) but the rain stopped and the sun came out.

Neither of the teenagers had trig bagging appropriate footwear on so turned back once we struck off across field and came across a bog. It then eluded my brother.

So I strode off alone. I very much liked the marked out footpath.

But the trig was far more elusive.

You can just about see if under the ivy.

And the other side...

Needless to say I didn't get the flush bracket number.

And to finish a humerous, if not slightly frustrating, story with teenagers. I sent my daughter off to find the Bideford map last night from our map collection. "I need a Landranger," I said, "1:50 as we don't have a larger scale of that area" I called through to the lounge. "I need 190 please". A few minutes later she returns empty handed. "What has happened to map sheet 190?" I asked? "Oh," she exclaimed, "you mean number 190? I was looking for a scale 1:90 (1 to 90) but could only find 1:25 or 1:50 thousands." Oh my word. My daughter is looking for a 1:90 000 OS map sheet. I really am a failure aren't I?