I first heard of benchmarks back when I was a junior in high school, back at Randolph High School. I'm very sure that this came up in a geology class, when we were watching a film that spent a few moments on benchmarks. I thought that they were cool, but I wouldn't be seeing any as that you had to know where one was in order to go look at one, and plus I was thinking they were all way out west somewhere, a region of the country that I would not get to for some time.
As it was, I ended up out west sooner than I would have thought, when my dad accepted a transfer to California. I was into ham radio by then, and I wanted to upgrade from the Novice class license that I held. In those days if you wanted to upgrade, you had to go to the nearest FCC field office, which in my case was at the U.S. Customhouse in San Francisco on Battery Street.
My dad drove me up there for this, and after we had parked we walked over to find the Customhouse. It was an easy find, a huge gray building, multistory, and from its looks it was built in the 1930s or so. I happened to notice a disk on the corner of the building at the base, and it was a benchmark! I thought that was pretty cool, seeing that there. I pointed it out to my dad. From that film I thought benchmarks were all out where wild animals lived and that you weren't going to find any in a city. We then entered the building, I took the test that I studied very hard for, passed it, and got my upgraded license some six weeks later.
There were future visits to the Customhouse as I upgraded my license, working my up to the General Class, then Advanced, and then the Extra Class in June 1983. I had forgotten about that benchmark as that I was more concentrated on passing those tests so that I could make the top of the line as far as ham radio was concerned, as that I wanted to talk to other hams in places like Tokyo and Blagoveshchensk.
Fast forward now to 2000. Or maybe 2001. In those days I made several drives up to what is now the Ironwood Forest National Monument. I knew the owners of a property up there and had permission to be on their land for hiking, camping, and wildlife viewing as long as I left the place just as clean or cleaner than before getting there. (I know that I did at least two camping trips there). This was up on Silverbell Road, somewhere between Marana and the old Silverbell Mine. A lot of it was BLM land before it became a national monument (aside from the properties that some folks had) and it was a really great place to take some pictures.
One day on one of those excursions, I would notice these manmade concrete squares every other mile or so. They were roughly fifteen inch squares, and I either pulled over to look at one of them, or maybe it was a relief stop. When I got up to take a closer look, it was a benchmark! It told me the elevation like the one in San Francisco did, and it too was placed there by the U.S. Geological Survey. I saw several more of them up and down Silverbell Road, all of them being these concrete settings with the disk embedded in the top.
I didn't think about benchmarks for years after that, until day at work during my lunch break, I thought of them for some reason and went online to learn more about them. I learned that they're scattered all over the country, and that there were a few between where I worked then and home, and one day a few weeks later I stopped off to look at one.
I started thinking about them a month or so ago. I mean, they're out there in some interesting places, and seeing as how I like the outdoors they were giving me one more excuse to get out there, along with the hiking, hunting and fishing. I learned where the ones on my side of town were by going online, and when Sheila wanted to go for a walk in Udall Park, I remembered that there was one there. I printed out its data sheet, and after an early evening meal we went over to the park. There was enough daylight, and it was a nice walk trying to find the thing. A handheld GPS receiver would have sped up the search, but from taking readings from an app on my phone I was able to locate it.
We took some pictures of it, thought it was cool, and then went home.
I have since spent more time online researching them. Last night I created an account on Geocaching.com and I logged my find. I spent today's lunch break looking at GPS receiver reviews, and I'm thinking about getting one in the near future. I know, I've said before that a handheld police scanner was going to be my next toy, and I haven't forgotten that. That said, if I take up deer hunting again I am really going to want a GPS receiver out there with me so I will know where I am. (I'm also interested in knowing just how far above sea level I'm at.)
I plan to spend some more time researching GPS receivers, as that I'd like to get out and find some more benchmarks. I don't see myself taking up geocache hunting, though I might see what it's all about. A good friend of mine here is into it, and I'll have to pick his brain about GPS handhelds.
In the meantime, here is a closeup shot of Saturday's find. I should have taken a few of the monument itself, but I didn't.
Oh well.
Next time.
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