47. Fort Stockton, Pecos County

The last of my traditional waypoints, Fort Stockton is about a hundred miles from anywhere else (well, actually, it’s 60 miles from Alpine, but that’s a different story). To it’s credit, it’s right on I-10, so at least that hundred miles is really fast. The Pecos County Courthouse caught my eye for reasons I cannot adequately explain. I don’t see anything about it that makes it stand apart from any other courthouse, and yet it called to me from some reason.

One other thing caught my eye while I was out here. Interestingly enough, in 1936 the State decided to note the history and value of Fort Stockton…

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…but note its value to the Confederacy in 1963. Heck, I’m a bit impressed that the Union was even mentioned the second time around. Something something juxtaposition something.

Here, however, is where I fail you. The closest cache was a couple of blocks away, set up and maintained by the local Boy Scout troop at their scout hut. There is was a camo pill bottle, sitting between a plant and the yellow wall, the great fleur-de-lis overlooking it all. The cool, dry air; the overlay of both care and dilapidation; a symbol of youth in the middle of this grizzled town… The moment was made for a picture. And yet I did not take one. I took the cache, signed the log, and even left a trackable for someone, possibly even the Scouts themselves, to move along, but did not take the photo. But the job was done. I went back to the car and and hit the road.

As a minor sidenote, when this goes live, this will be my 100th entry. When I first started documenting my project, I never thought about reaching this point. Now here I am and I’m glad you have come on this journey and now think about (and look forward to) the next hundred. I’ll continue down that highway. And today the highway led me to…