190. Rio Grande City, Starr County

Wait a minute… The front of the courthouse is illuminated! In fact, it’s bright enough to get a decent photograph! And if I can get a photograph, I can grab a cache and head to the next county and be ahead of the game tomorrow! W00T! I long ago realized that I kinda cut myself off at the knees with this project when I decided to do the county courthouse thing. If it was not for that, I could have stayed close to county borders instead of going to the center of each county and I could do more night grabs because I wouldn’t be as dependent on daylight. Well, tonight has offered an unexpected chance to get something done during what is effectively dead time for me so I’ll take it! Click away!

Of course, now I have to go find a cache. As fate would have it, someone was nice enough to place one on the boulevard central walk leading to the courthouse. So I took a little stroll and saw some monuments. There is a minor complication to the walk though. The walk is not continuous: it is broken up into block long sections so the crosstreets can continue. One (technically two) of the roads that cross are the lanes of the highway through town so you have to cross really heavy traffic going one way then a block then really heavy traffic going the other way. That was a minor inconvenience in the greater scheme of things. My bigger worry was the party across the street from the cache. It was what looked like a rental duplex a stone’s throw from the courthouse and eight or ten people were sitting in chairs around a smoker, possibly watching or listening to a sporting event because bursts of laughter and groans or yelps would happen at random times. Luckily, they were far more interested in their activities than they were in me.

The cache itself is at a Vietnam Vet memorial, hence the name of it. A long nano attached magnetically. Pretty simple and to the point, perfect for the middle of the night. I did all the things, and then played real life Frogger back to the car to roll again, the sounds of camraderie and youth bursting from time to time as I walked. I got moving to postion myself again for the morning, arriving in…