336. Alamogordo, Otero County (NM20)

This is a perfectly nice courthouse and all that good stuff, but it’s also emblematic of an issue that I’m starting to run into that will not concern anyone who isn’t interested in courthouses. In Texas, the county courthouse is both the center of law and jurisprudence and the center of administration. Lately, I’ve been running into a load of places where the court and county administration are two separate creatures. This therefore raises the question: which have I been focusing on? The administration or the judiciary? I think I’ve been focused on the courthouse as administration center, but there is at least one case where that hasn’t been entirely true. Even in that case (which is not at the county level I point out), the administrative center (I guess at the state level it’s the legislative center) receives notice. Ultimately, I guess it’s really just an esoteric question that doesn’t matter in the greater scheme of things, but it does highlight the fact that some places are going to have different courthouse schemes than I’m used to, and that may affect how I document them. This will start to have a more pointed effect once I get further into Arkansas, but that, to paraphrase Mr. Slinkard (a cacher of some renown), is a story for another entry.

The cache itself was a nano under a bench on some kind of main street. As fate would have it, the owner of the business it’s in front of is a cacher and, had it been open, I might have said hello. it took me a bit longer than usual to find, though because it was just in this right spot that my fingers couldn’t reach so I couldn’t feel it. I had to lie down on my back and look like some kind of savage. I was a little disappointed, though. I figured being here, this close to White Sands and all, I should have grabbed something more related to space or the Bomb. Heck, there was a virtual at the White Sands Museum and Missile Park belonging one of my local cachers, Racer57. Unfortunately, it was closed because we’re still living in the time of cholera.

I did however, manage to see the world’s largest pistachio, so there’s that. I, however, managed not to get a photo of it, so I guess that memory is mine and mine alone (along with the thousands of people who visit every year). Besides, it was time to get moving, even though I was running really far ahead. I started to make for my next destination…