533. Eads, Kiowa County (CO07)

Once again, I don’t know quite what to make of this courthouse. Is there something about the 1950’s that inspired this that I didn’t know about? I guess it’s interesting because it’s a split-level thing that seems like something out of the 70’s but not exactly, so it seems a little progressively bad for the times? Whatever. The plumbing worked so I took the opportunity to avail myself of their facilities. Normally that would merit little more than a passing mention, but once I left and returned outside to make my now customary notes, I was surprised to notice a slightly rotund officer follow out the same door and approach me. As he got closer, I noticed from his rank that he was no officer, but rather the county Sheriff. And he wanted to know if I was OK. Wait. What? He explained that he saw me enter the courthouse and then leave relatively quickly. Since I didn’t seem to find what I was looking for, he wanted to help me if I needed it. I responded that I wasn’t actually looking for anything (at least not at the courthouse), that my hobby was photographing courthouses (at this point, technically true), and that I just took the opportunity to use the bathroom. Seemingly satisfied, he returned back inside. I have been to 533 counties and even more courthouses, in large cities and small towns alike. I have even been lucky enough to enter more than a few of them. But while this is not the first time I’ve had an officer of the law approach me at a courthouse, this is the first time one has ever followed me outside. Thinking back on it, I have no doubt I stood out like a sore thumb. The town has 600 people, the county 1,300. Being that it is quite possible that everyone in the county knows one another, a stranger is obvious. I didn’t feel any real animus from the conversation, so I’m going to assume it was a highly unexpected expression of helpfulness and ignore my spidey senses going off.

There’s always a cemetery. I found it on the way to town. In this case, it was about a mile into the middle of a field. I had to drive a Toyota Corolla down a very unused dirt road for quite a while just to get there. This would turn out to be foreshadowing for later in this trip. Suffice it for now to say that any vehicle is an off road vehicle if you take it off road. The last person to “find” the cache didn’t actually find it, and left a throwdown in its place. Ironically, I found the original cache itself, half buried on the fence line, but didn’t find the throwdown. Once both requirements, cache and courthouse, were fulfilled, I made my way northward, coming to halt in…