791. Denton, Caroline County (MD11)

Denton had another nice colonial-style courthouse, this one being Georgian Revival and completed in 1896. It occurred to me as I walked the brick path toward it that I should probably stop thinking of everything as “colonial”-this and “colonial”-that since almost everywhere for the rest of the trip would likely qualify as colonial, but something else immediately caught my eye about the courthouse door. When I arrived, I needed to use a bathroom, and it has not been uncommon for me to use courthouse facilities when I’m on the road and it’s a weekday. When I got to the front door, I noticed a keypad. The door was locked. A regular person cannot walk into the Caroline County Courthouse. Something about that is just plain wrong. I understand the need for security, and I could see a metal detector inside the front door for just that, but it’s unseemly (outside of extreme circumstances) for the people’s house to be barred to the people.

Because we were traveling together as a team, sometimes we would split up and find caches for the collective. Much of it was pragmatic: some of us were better hikers than others, and some of us were more experienced with difficult hides than others. What harm is there in letting some people find the answers to the Virtuals and EarthCaches while others were climbing hillsides to get some more rugged Traditionals? Everyone was involved, whether they researched, navigated, climbed, or drove. Everyone shared in the spoils of victory unless they chose not to, and by “they,” I mean me. I didn’t claim any cache in any county where I didn’t visit the courthouse, whether or not I was there in the county. This would result in me passing on at least half a dozen counties and one Jasmer hole-filler, among other things, but I have a personal and editorial standard to maintain. I am sorry that my personal crap subjected others of the fellowship to difficulties and frustration, but it went both ways. Sometimes I was frustrated with others as well. But we all made allowances for each other and had a wonderful time.

My point here (and I do have one) is that while I was cruising about looking for a bathroom near the courthouse, the other car found a cache, a lamppost cache near some local wharves. Since it was a lovely day for riparian diversions, we swung by the cache and dallied a moment. We looked out at the beautiful sky and the small-town folk going on with their activities before racing off to catch up with the others. They were already headed out of town, and we hoped to catch up with them before they reached…