399. Marianna, Lee County (AR25)

The audible was called and executed. I was planning on being here in Marianna a few days from now/then at the end of the trip, but anything I could take off the back of my trip would make my return that much easier. That’s the wonder of being able to use nighttime or “dead” hours to get some things done. I always feel like I’m racing daylight to begin with and that’s not so much of a thing when you have fourteen hours or more of daylight to play with. But in the winter when there’s only ten or less? It feels like I can do so little. This is especially exacerbated by the fact that I spend so much of that time driving around from one place to another. When I’m on the road, I tend (with notable exceptions) to schedule a half hour for each county: fifteen minutes to photograph (usually not all needed) and fifteen minutes to find a cache (sometimes not enough) and all the rest is spent driving. I don’t get to spend much time in each place or even caching in general on the road when it comes down to it. On top of that, I have to wrangle with the thief of light? So anytime night can be coopted is a boon and anything extra I can get done with the now available light is a blessing of sorts. I can’t not try to use it to its fullest. And if it makes my greater trip easier? Well, that’s even better.

The literary scholar in me had been bristling all day and his jimmies were again rustled. “Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his country”? First of all, that’s taking a very big spoonful of poetic justice with the original quote. Secondly, a man can have greater love than to lay down his life for his country. Nobody would even question a parent laying their life down for their child. Finally, I love my country, but I’m not ready to lay my life down for it at this particular moment. That’s a different issue altogether. My point here (and I do have one) is that bon mots such as this were not made for people like me, but this one is especially bad.

The cache was a quick LPC at a grocery store. Simple, to the point, most certainly good enough for government work. Out of the parking lot and back on the road, my detour continued onward to…