The actual tri-point I found by renting a jet-ski and taking my GPS on board and heading to the middle of the Colorado. See me in the center of the photo, checking my GPS receiver? OK, I lie. I took this photo from shore and of course can only approximate where the tri-point is, but if I’m really obsessive (and you know I am), I will one day rent a boat from the casino hotel or something and go out and get to the very spot.

The valley today is actually not very attractive – miles and miles of irrigated muddy fields, congested roads (with SUVs towing their ATVs or jet skis or power boats), transmission lines, Indian casinos, and oppressive heat.

Interestingly, there is a monument marking the southern tip of Nevada. The monument was placed in 1873 by Alexey W. Von Schmidt, who surveyed the diagonal southern boundary between California and Nevada. He erred slightly (not uncommon in this business). The iron obelisk is about a mile west of the actual tri-point, which is in the middle of the Colorado. It’s up on a small hill right off the road. John Wilusz wrote a great piece in Professional Surveyor in 2002 on the California-Nevada border, the actual position of which was only finally settled by the US Supreme Court in 1980 (yes, as in the year of Devo's "Whip It").

Another strange thing about this iron obelisk is the fact that the three states that Von Schmidt mentions are Nevada, California, and… Oregon, which is noted as 612 miles away at the other endpoint. I wonder if Arizona is mentioned on the monument at that tri-point. I will someday get to see.

is that me out on a jet-ski, checking my GPS?