37. Brady, McCulloch County

For a distance that isn’t supposed to be that far, this felt like a really long drive.  It seems like a sleepy little town with a nice little courthouse.  A little light on monuments, though.  The county is named after Ben McCulloch and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about him.  He came to Texas with Davy Crockett and recruited volunteers from Tennessee to fight for Texas Independence.  He was an officer in the Texas Rangers and, later, a US Marshal.  He served in Mexico at the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista, receiving a battlefield promotion to Major.  Unfortunately, he was also a Brigadier General for the Confederacy and died leading troops.  But enough about my theoretical issues with him…

Again, the lack of service totally threw me again so I had to find some wireless up in here.  Oddly enough, I got it at the courthouse.  I didn’t expect to find a guard and a metal detector there, but when I told him my zero service situation, he just waved me in without checking me out and took me to the county clerk who gave me the password.  I downloaded maps for travel and caches.  And as fate would have it, there was one 32 feet away on the courthouse grounds called “KA-BOOM”.  I wonder where it could be…  I walked around the gun and spotted the cache easily enough.  The log was signed, the cache replaced, and I prepared to go.

I’m going to take a moment for some commentary.  It is quite possible that the people of Brady are the nicest people I have run across in any town thus far.  Every person I met was friendly and helpful and that’s unexpected.  Most places, while not impolite, have given a feeling of insularity.  It’s like people feel that I’m not from around there and keep to themselves (unless, of course, they’re giving me a good look over [yes, I can tell the difference]).  Maybe Brady is a notch nicer than everywhere else?  Or is it something they put in the water?  I don’t know.  But I do know this: short though it was, it was a pleasant time here.

But I had a date with destiny.  I refilled the tank and headed off for…