794. Salisbury, Wicomico County (MD14)

What the heck kind of Frankenstein monstrosity is this? So, I had to do some soul-searching to figure out how to photograph the Wicomico County Courthouse. Trees obscured the older entrances (Future Arborists of America take note!), but the other, actual main entrance …

… was nestled between the mechanical equipment! Which was part of the bridge to the extension! What the heck went through someone’s head that this would be remotely attractive? And there’s another such entrance on the other side, and it’s no more photogenic than this! Once, this wasn’t an unattractive courthouse, as I can tell from the older section. It’s just that someone spent some time thinking about how to mess it up. Because that’s the only real answer I can think of as to why. The actual county administration building, a boring, modernish brick office from the 1970s, looks better than this. The best thing about this courthouse was that we were rushing so hard that I spent little time contemplating it. We were raring to go because of time’s arrow or some kind of crap like that.

It was a lamppost, but it wasn’t entirely simple. The last finder had mentioned that there were ants all over the cache. This happens. That’s why I’ve owned gloves since my first non-official caching trip to San Antonio. We parked, I jumped out, I pushed into a bush, and I lifted the skirt. Ants! All the ants! And the maggots! These things had built a civilization under this lamp skirt! How? What did they eat? How did they power their transportation networks? Why were they all living there? And there weren’t ants all over the concrete column, so… My mind reeled! Also, I was minorly revulsed by the sight. But it was easily remedied. I reached back into the car, pulled out my water bottle, and poured it out upon them all. For those ants, washed away in what might one day be their Flood of myth and legend, I had become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds. But the cache was no longer icky. I pulled out the log and stamped it. Our goal was achieved, and it only cost an insect infestation. And just as quickly as we had driven up, we were off again, racing toward…