56. Karnes City, Karnes County

Rolling down the highway, I looked over to the left and towering out of the woods was the courthouse. I’ve mentioned it before, but there’s something I really like about courthouses that tower over an area. So I followed the looming building until I was at its foot. It’s not the most interesting courthouse, though. There’s a large open space behind like a square, but not. There’s an artillery piece memorial to wars. And nothing else on the grounds. The interesting thing, however, is across the street.

This is dedicated to the women of Karnes County. I’d have to check back through the archives, but this might be the first one of these I’ve seen in my travels. And it’s it’s not the first, it’s definitely the biggest.

I ended up going several miles out of town for the cache. I ended up at a run down farm, outside of which was the cache. It was placed by the granddaughter of the farm’s original owner, but I failed you all. I didn’t get a photo of the farmhouse like I should have. When I realized I had forgotten, I almost turned around to go back, but I was far enough away that I decided it wasn’t worth it. That said, while I was there, someone driving down the road saw me over on the side, slowed down, and asked me if anything was wrong. I said I was alright, but thanks for asking. He waved and drove off. Why is this of note? This particular someone was black. I’ve had people who are white stop before and ask me if anything is wrong. The difference here is that when I said everything was alright, the black guy left it at that and went on his way. In the other cases, questions invariably follow: what am I doing, why am I here, do I live around here. I get that smaller towns are going to be insular and looking out for strangers is part of watching out for the community. I also get that some people are more suspicious of others and/or feel they deserve to know more about what’s going on. Some people are protective of their privacy, but more cavalier about the privacy of others. Oh, well…

Cache grabbed, it was getting late. I knew I wouldn’t make it to the next destination in time for photography, but I headed on because the next town seemed a better place to stop for the night. I got rolling and soon enough I was in…