It was really nice to be back on the road again. It felt like it was too long away, even though it was only about two months. There was a certain bittersweetness about this trip for me. I had a realization that I was about to take on the last “closest” counties to me. Once this trip was over, I would have to drive at least seven hours to get to a new county. That was going to make future trips more complicated unless I a) took longer trips or b) started flying to my starting destinations. Time is a more difficult thing for me between work and spending time with the girls, but I’m not quite ready to bring myself to fly yet. Maybe by the end of the year, once I’ve finished getting vaccinated (I’m half done at this point) and have seen that getting into a metal tube to share air with strangers during a global pandemic isn’t as dangerous or ill-informed as I feel it is at the moment. Almost as unsettling was that somewhere around Jarrell TX, I realized that I had forgotten a few useful things. You see, this trip had been somewhat spur of the moment. I spent a few days mulling over the idea of going and then an hour pathing it out, instead of my usual M.O. of spending weeks planning, pathing, and preparing. Among the useful things left behind was my low light photography solution (sure, I could just call it a camera, but that’s just boring) and my map book of Oklahoma. Not having maps might be an inconvenience, but the low light photo solution? I didn’t think that would be too much of a problem because Oklahoma seemed to have quite many illuminated courthouses, but it might be a problem once I got to Arkansas. I only had ten counties left in Eastern Oklahoma, so of course I was going to hit Arkansas, too. I would cross that bridge (as I already had the Red River and would more than a few others) when I got to it. As you can see, the courthouse was lovely and not made of red brick, which in my estimation is a mark in its favor.
There wasn’t much in the way of memorials, just a war memorial (pictured above) and a Confederate soldiers’ memorial (not pictured). <sarcasm>Truly, without it, we might forget the Civil War even happened.</sarcasm> There was also a midnight chill in the air which convinced me to hurry up with my photography and get to the cache.
Sidenote: the charging stations across the street reminded me of Frederick…
I took a jaunt up the road to Southeastern Oklahoma State University. I hope you can excuse me for the sin of parking in a handicapped space. I kinda want to kick my own ass for doing it, but I figured there were three more spaces available and there wasn’t much of a demand for them at 12:30AM-ish. I was led to a tree on the mall facing the building and look what I found in a knot hole!
It was quickly signed and returned. It was all pretty simple (except for the feral dogs I had to scare off with my maglight) so my work here was done. I vacated my immoral parking spot and set off for…
Geocaching While Black 
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