630. Searcy, White County (AR49)

Get a load of that gorgeous old lady!  There’s something quite stunning about her in the pre-morning light.  OK, maybe that’s not actually “pre-morning” light.  One interesting thing from a lighting perspective is how the ground illumination seems so much whiter than the tower illumination, which is yellowish.  I don’t know if that’s an accidental difference stemming from different bulbs or an intentional choice.  If intentional, I could see how different lighting colors could be interesting for the tower.  If done well, it could even be interesting for the body itself.  Long ago, when Michelangelo had redesigned Saint Peter’s Basilica, he had it painted multiple colors; red, yellow, blue, and green.  We know this because they have the original receipts for the paint and have found traces during exterior cleaning and upkeep.  Part of me wonders if it wasn’t a callback to the original Roman chariot racing teams which eventually became the Roman political parties; in the Western Empire as the Reds and the Whites, in the Eastern Empire as the Blues and the Greens.  That, however, is a complete and total digression.  I decided to stop for a couple of hours of sleep before I got to the job of cache finding. 

I went to the theater across the street on the square for the cache.  Devoted to the musical about the founding father some now believe may have been Puerto Rican (that’s a joke, son!  A joke!), I ended up looking around the bezel of what I think may have been some kind of chute before it was filled with concrete.  The hint said to “feel,” but I felt nothing.  But look what I found when I put a flashlight and the Mk. 1 eyeball to the task?  Cute and clever.  It was even more important to me because this, for me, was cache 4000.  I had originally planned to go for something particularly special to mark the milestone as I have in the past, but tackling a piece of geoart with some friends moved it up far faster than I had expected.  At least I can live with a find in another state for the coveted number.  My work here was mostly done.  I ended up having to take a little detour that I will discuss at a later date (look at me being all mysterious twice…) before I was ready to set off again.  By this point, the sun had truly appeared and I had an interesting choice to make.  I could complete my business on this trip and start heading home, or I could go grab a few extra counties.  Everything I had originally planned had been attended to and the day was literal minutes old, but I had made a backup plan in case I had extra time on my hands.  I think you, my readers, know me well enough to know that my answer was of course I was going to get some extra counties.  I put proverbial pedal to metal and went even more easterly, intent on reaching…