your best or most enjoyable surveying experience?
Mine:
Surveying the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in Marin County (across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco)while working for BLM. I was 20 something, single, Harley Sportster and got to survey down the middle of a nude beach.
Or maybe one of the helicopter jobs (again BLM) in Southern CA.
Surveyed Eleanor Roosevelt's home in Hyde Park. The 180 acre site was being sold off to be subdivided. Soon after, it was bought back and made part of the National Park System.
Setting borings out in the Long Reach, part of the Hudson River between Newburgh and Poughkeepsie.
ROW layout in Ulster and Greene Counties along proposed power line routes.
Topographical surveys at various reservoirs in the NYC water supply system.
Full topographical survey of Broadway between West 57th Street and West 52nd Street, in Midtown Manhattan We needed to do interior work at the Ed Sullivan Theater and several Broadway theaters.
3 trips down the Colorado River surveying topographic features. Two week trips, did not want to go back to reality.
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Working with the Mason Dixon Line Preservation Partnership to recover and GPS the remaining stones on the Mason/Dixon line.
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A week of perfect mid October weather locating ground water monitoring wells at Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware. To see over all the brush behind the dunes, we traversed from roof to roof of a series of WW2 submarine observation towers.
I once ran a level loop along the beach from Myrtle Beach, SC north for about 10 miles to set a BM for a survey. This was during the summer and it was hard to concentrate with all the bikini babes about.
The scenery at UNC-Asheville during graduation time. We (me and Tony the PC) were doing a serious topo and me being the gunner had the best views... i.e. babe viewing. It was also the same job where I figured out how F2F works and made it work while we were in the field. Tony was blown away.
I was on the gun going to backsight Tony and this "honey doll babe" was walking up behind him. I just had to let him know (very loud over the radio). 🙂 He enjoyed the moment as she passed by him and calls me back on the radio "Eric, you know we are both going to hel1".
Then there was the time at the same job site where another girl/lady come to me on the gun asking "Is that a total station?". GAME ON!! I chat/flirt with her for a good bit. Turns out she was the archeological (sp?) professor there and they had just bought one and was wondering how they work. Tony was nearby enough to hear it all. After she went on her way he says "you were just lovin every minute of that weren't you". Hel1 yeah I was!!!
2nd summer working, spent the entire time in Bryan-College Station Surveying part of the A&M farm to stake wells. For a 13 year old, it was heaven. The "scenery" was almost more than my 13 year old heart could take. If I had only been 16, or 21, wow, to think.
I have a really good time tuning radio antenna's. We always work with the same crew, generally overnight, and have a really good time. The beer doth floweth. 🙂
Most of the time, I'm totally in heaven if a job comes together and we make really good money on it. I surveyed Lon Morris College last summer with my robot by myself. Not a lot of scenery, but a fun job. Ipod in my ear and work 10 hour days. Fun job.
Surveying all the shore front structures on the Elizibeth Islands....
Anytime I'm working on the Gulf or one of the area Bays...
Lake Shasta, CA, Summer 2000. We were setting aerial panels around the whole lake in August/September 2000. I was there for two or three weeks. There was three or four surveyors stationed on the lake for the entire time to set panels and run gps static sessions. Some panels were set on the shore and some we had to hike up each of the fingers to set panels since the water level was about 50' down at the time. The company hired 5 locals to be boat captains for us and we used our per diem to hire out a local owned houseboat for the whole time we were there. We also all chipped in about $50 each to buy all the food and beverages we needed for the time on the houseboat. We had 3 pontoon boats that the company rented and one speed boat so we could go get supplies and meet the other surveyors that were running the job from the shore and tying into control points and running the base stations. We worked 7 days a week, 6 am to 4 pm. We were there over labor day weekend and got pretty hammered every night. Lunches on the lake were spent either fishing or swimming.
3 months as a dredge inspector. Very easy work, a fully stocked galley that was open 24/7, satellite TV, and a 12 hour shift that required maybe 4 hours of actual work.
I gained 30 pounds during that time, and as I was already married, suggested the cajun cook adopt me.
Surveying on the beach a couple of times and the desert is really fun to survey.
