802. Trenton, Mercer County (NJ01)

Oh, New Jersey!

Much like with Philadelphia, I would expect no less an impressive courthouse from one of the oldest cities in the country. Oddly enough, the Mercer County Courthouse and this trip forced the resolution of a troublesome issue for me. For a very long time, I’ve considered deeply what building to document as the “county courthouse.” When I was in New Mexico, I agonized over the offices of county administrators. On a few occasions, I realized I had gotten the wrong building after I had returned home and went back to fix my mistake. On a couple of occasions, I chose a more attractive older building over a more correct choice because I am aesthetic trash. Actually, I tend to document both, but that’s beside the point. I have also developed relatively stringent guidelines for deciding what I should consider the front of the building for photography purposes. Traveling with others tested my photography standards. I didn’t want to drag other people around too much, so I wouldn’t end up circling a building looking for the right face or the best angle (though it has got me thinking about possibly getting a drone for getting better vantages, but that’s a little pie in the sky). I just got a shot and called it good. Consequently, I didn’t get the best possible photos of several courthouses on the trip, but it was a small price to pay for my compatriots.

After crossing the Delaware to Mercer County, I got my county courthouse photo but later learned it was the old courthouse. It’s still in use, but the Office of the County Executive is at the current county courthouse, on the same street but six miles away. And I don’t care. That doesn’t mean I don’t have some regrets, but I’m not stressing over it. I made a good-faith, reasonable choice that I might have made anyway because of a preference for certain architecture because aesthetic trash. I certainly wasn’t going to drag my friends across town because of my personal insanity. So, you’re getting something that is less correct than it could have been, and I’m OK with that. One day, I may go back and provide something less wrong, but we shall see. More importantly, in the future, when I face the same choice, I’ll be kinder to myself and worry about it less. I’ve chosen a difficult goal (visiting every county [or county equivalent] in the United States) and complicated it pretty seriously (visiting every county’s courthouse or administrator’s office). I should be easier on myself. I deserve some grace. Or some kind of crap like that. Besides, neither courthouse could possibly be the center of political gravity here. Not when the old courthouse is so near …

… the New Jersey State House. Domes are pretty common on capitol buildings, but the gold dome on this one gave it a bit of extra panache. I don’t think it was quite as cool as Cheyenne’s, but meh. More interestingly (and I didn’t immediately process this when I was there), this is the only capitol building I saw that is built into its urban space instead of placed on a great square or park. The footprint is so expansive that you can barely see the dome from the street, which is a waste if you ask me (and also where I got the idea of a drone). That said, the fellowship didn’t exactly do things in this order.

It amazed me to learn that coming here was a goal of both Krissy4884 and Kittydcota.  They are both fans of Janet Evanovich and the Stephanie Plum books, so they were looking forward to walking the hard-boiled streets of Trenton.  I’m not sure the Trenton Thunder Ballpark qualifies as “hard-boiled,” but we learned a bit about the park’s other namesake, Samuel Plumeri Jr., Trenton’s own Mr. Baseball.  While the Virtual there was good enough for certain purposes, New Jersey is a more complicated state than that.  Most of the states we would visit have simple enough county challenge requirements: no Events or variations (CITOs, Megas, etc).  Three states deviate from that somewhat, but we’ll talk about those later.  New Jersey, on the other hand, has stricter requirements.  Only Traditionals, Multis, Mysteries, and Letterbox Hybrids are allowed (which is more stringent than just “physical caches” because Whereigos are verboten), and none can be micros.  We decided to go get a Traditional as well, which worked out nicely because the statehouse grounds had one at the Old Barracks Museum.  We took a few minutes learning about the museum and were hosted to a drum demonstration …

… and a fife demonstration!  We then went to one of the back buildings and basically looked for a needle in a haystack …

… or, more accurately, a wood block in a woodpile.  The cache took longer than expected because it had fallen from its lofty perch, but I got lucky and stumbled over it.  With that, we had a Traditional, but … while it wasn’t a micro, it was an other.  We still didn’t have a cache for the county challenge!  We confabbed about it for a minute.  Several of us didn’t care about the county challenge in the first place, and the rest of us would have to come back to New Jersey anyway.  What we had was good enough for the souvenir and to claim the county.  I was already coming back to Mercer County anyway.  Considering how nice it was, that might even be welcome.  We mounted up and got moving.  We had a lot of counties originally planned for New Jersey, but we set them aside.  Being tourists in Philly took much of our day, and we had to reach a destination that evening.  We still had hope in our hearts as we headed north, so we headed to another New Jersey county, one that I had requested and that still offered a possibility of glory.  Krissy4884 traded driving with Kittydcota, so Krissy, Godot, and I braved the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, not stopping until we reached…