333. Lovington, Lea County (NM17)

Just when I thought I was out, it pulled me back in. Actually, that’s a lie. One thing about me is that I’m a bit of a collector and a completionist. I always want to complete a set or a collection if I am capable of it. I’m not monomaniacal about it or anything, but I do like the feeling of finishing something out. And with half of New Mexico beckoning to me like a jewel and some time on my hands, how could I say no? So I didn’t. That’s why I arrived here in the middle of the night. I had actually been to Lea County once before, but I was in the middle of a different project at the time. Arriving at 1 AM, however, I didn’t not expect the courthouse to be illuminated. Nice as it was, I was less interested in its aesthetics and more interested in how an unexpected opportunity had arisen. With photography done, all that remained was to get a cache and I could reach my next destination early.

I found a guard rail out on the edge of town. A flashlight facilitated a quick and easy find at a crazy hour of the morning. To be fair, I had actually picked it up on my way into town already, planning to sleep in the car until dawn. Illumination kept that from happening, though, for the best of reasons.

As a weird side note, there was enough light to photograph the war memorial at the courthouse, but across the street was a game store. Imagine my surprise to see that they were still open and people were in there playing! On one level, I was a bit concerned with the lack of social distancing in the time of cholera, but on the other hand, my gamer heart was warmed a bit. A game store is a game store is a game store much the same way that a cache is a cache is a cache. Some things never change and, thinking back on all the times I was at Dragon’s Lair at some ungodly time of the morning, I am glad of it. But enough lollygagging! Now that I was done here, I headed on down the road to make an early arrival at my next destination…