560. Fairplay, Park County (CO28)

The courthouse was decidedly meh. I didn’t have a lot of time to spend dwelling on it, though. My opinion took a backseat because I was a man on a mission. It was hard enough to get through town considering that there was a free concert being given and everybody and their mother and their children seemed to be going to it, wandering in the streets and slowing me down. I had already been delayed passing over the Continental Divide. That always seems to take a lot of time, no matter what state I’m doing it in. Eventually, I realized that I wouldn’t make it to the cache before the sun went down at this rate. I wanted to avoid getting there after sunset, but sometimes Deus non vult. Especially since there was only one cache in Park County that was truly worth it for me…

Ladies and Gentlemen (or however you identify—I don’t mean to be gender assumptive), I give you GC18, known more colloquially as Tarryall. I went down the highway and turned into a preserve in a state park as the sun was setting. I ran up one really crappy dirt road until I got to the actual town of Tarryall itself, which is really just a ghost town with a schoolhouse and a couple of other buildings. As the light completely died, I continued down a nice, well-paved road, much like a city street, seemingly going nowhere. I made it to a parking area and then to the real challenge. There was a craptastic dirt path that really needed a 4X4 to navigate, and I was driving a Toyota Corolla. But you know what? Any vehicle is an off-road vehicle if you take it off road. I slowly crept up that craptastic path (feeling earth and rocks touching the undercarriage at times but avoiding horridly deep ruts) until I was about five hundred feet away. I abandoned the vehicle at that point, leaving it running because (a) I would be able to see the headlights in the unlikely event that I lost my way, and (b) who was out here in the middle of nowhere to steal it? I pressed on over a rolling hill. And behold what I found, surrounded in altar-like fashion! I took the opportunity to trade a couple of trackables: my own newest one, Blankin’ Camaro (which new arrivals have said has gone missing from literally the first cache I put it in!), for, well…

Yes, it’s a trackable. And who else was going to take it? So I took it. For those who care about such things, I brought it back to Texas, carried it around for a month or so, and then passed it on to someone at an event. Once I was done there, I made my way back to the car and more quickly navigated the drive back to something resembling pavement. The parking area turned onto the nice street, which led to back roads and then (in the fullness of time) the highway. I knew I would begin the long drive home the next day and would need some sleep before attempting such a journey at this point. My next destination provided all the possibilities I would need for rest, but as always, I was up before dawn (as I am wont to do when I travel), so I began my new day before the sun rose over…