377. Coldwater, Comanche County (KS016)

This one feels like a cheat. Maybe this can be considered a passable photo, that’s not as bad as some of the others I’ve gotten in the past, but you can barely make out any detail at all. How can I make any architectural judgements if I can barely see the architecture itself? Knowing that you all expect a certain amount of quality from me (or, more importantly, that I expect a certain level from myself), I’m beginning to question whether this is a direction I might want to go in the future. I thought I might save it for emergencies, for instance, getting somewhere a bit too early or too late for good light, but I didn’t think that this would be the beginning of a new era of night photography for me. At least I didn’t at the time. The more I’ve considered it… So I’ve bought a camera and maybe I may absorb some tutorials on photography, especially in low light conditions. A phone is definitely not up to the task, but with real equipment, it might be a real possibility. I’ve got some time to experiment before I make my next great roadtrip (it looks like it’s going to be over Thanksgiving weekend), so let’s see where we are at that point. Heck, when I get back up this way, I might even take a shot at a replacement photo here! I have fancy plans (and pants to match), and a little night photography could make a whole lot of difference in the vastly shortened days of winter. But, right at that moment, I was where I was and had done what I had done, so it was only right that I get a cache and make it worth debasing my journalistic principals.

The cache, as you can see, was a little jar in a tree by an old sign near a church. Simple and to the point. Not a 1/1, but that’s OK. It was simple enough for a road in the middle of nowhere near the back of beyond. The important thing is that at any moment upon leaving here I would be returning to Oklahoma. That’s not something I would normally celebrate, but that would also mean that I would be that much closer to the holy borders of Texas (inside of which we have one of these). Not terribly long after hearing the little voice say “Welcome to Oklahoma,” I arrived at my destination. I parked and closed my eyes to sleep on the courthouse square of…