671. Springfield, Greene County (MO018)

Now, THIS is how you do a courthouse in an important city!  Admittedly, it doesn’t have the same panache as some of the other courthouses in Missouri, but this is a stately place where the business of the county has been transacted for generations.  Or maybe not.  I had and still have no earthly idea when they built it.  At that moment, I didn’t even care. There’s my shame, perhaps my sin.

As for the cache, while it lost points for being messed up and needing maintenance, it was pretty freakin’ clever, enough so that I have already copied the concept and will be placing (if I haven’t placed it already) something similar as a hide myself.  What I found was a giant set of film canisters tied together with only one of them containing the log!  Unfortunately, with the holding tube broken, the canisters had all twisted up with themselves (I think I have solved those problems in my own hide by using paracord and plumbing grade PVC pipe, but that’s not important right now).  Luckily for me, the log was in the first one I opened!  Unluckily for me, that canister also had webbing and a spider inside.  Yes, this cache needs a whole lot of maintenance, and believe me, I certainly logged it so.  That said, I was obviously impressed with the idea.  But I didn’t give it a favorite point.  Yes, the idea was great, but the execution was crappy, detracting from my overall experience.  Had it been in reasonable shape, I would have dropped that point like it was hot.  But, while I often reward cleverness, experience does count for something.  Busted up ten ways from Sunday is not how I like to approach a cache.  But that no longer mattered.  All that did matter was a hot shower and a warm bed.  Sleep would invigorate me for the trip home, a trip that would find momentary diversion to…