716. Clay Center, Clay County (KS094)

Driving into the county, I spotted the courthouse from a distance and wasn’t quite sure if it was the courthouse or a pretty grain silo.  Had it been the silo, I would have been quite disappointed.  Having seen this gorgeous old girl, I am decidedly not.  Is it just me, or does the white trim work both with and against the color of the stone, almost like eggshell on ecru?  I spent little time thinking about it, though.  I needed a cache, and I needed it quick.  A special cache awaited me in the next county, and I might lose the chance to see it in its full glory if I didn’t hurry.  It might not seem like much of a big deal now that I have a phone that captures great low-light shots, but it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.  I thought for a minute about getting the most favorited cache in the county, a scant two miles away, but I opted to remember that glory and hubris are for other people.  All that mattered was getting the county and getting out.  As fate would have it, there was a cache across the street from the courthouse, so I took the short walk to go get it.  I searched and searched until I finally found it and the loathsome beast guarding it!

Not since the time of Smaug, Vermithrax Pejorative, and Ancalagon the Black have such fearsome beasts stalked the earth!  Who could have guessed that I would see one with my own eyes and live to tell the tale?  And with that, after offering one of my stingily hoarded favorite points for its hoard (I’m not a monster, after all), I headed back to the car.  I took a momentary detour into an alley to offer my water to the state.  As I was humming to myself, I noticed the alley had really good acoustics, so I was distracted for a minute, singing to hear how it sounded.  Much like a dragon, I, too, am sometimes easily distracted by proverbial “shiny objects.”  But I needed to head off.  I was closing in on one of the caches I came all the way here to get.  The hour was not as late as I had feared it might be, which was good.  Still, I raced to arrive in plenty of time in…