805. Bridgeport, Metropolitan COG (CT1)

Oh, Connecticut!

Welcome to a new type of county equivalent! After 1960, the state of Connecticut had eight counties, which served as second-level administrative districts. In the 1980s, the state went from a county model to councils of governments (COGs), collections of cities and towns in a region that cooperate to handle governmental and political issues, but the counties basically hung on as vestigial entities. In 2019, the state applied to the US Census Bureau for the COGs to be the official county equivalents for statistical purposes. The application was approved in 2022, and the process was implemented in 2023, to be completed in 2024. The eight vestigial counties were all officially disbanded, leaving nine COGs in their place. I had originally been holding off on coming to the Northeast because I wanted to do it after the completion in 2024, but once I realized it would start earlier, I was raring to get up here! Of course, as COGs are administrative subdivisions of recent provenance, their offices do not have the storied architecture of more established counties. Indeed, their administrative offices are mundane, modern affairs barely worthy of note, but note them I did. My attempts to document them were in line with the amount of respect I held for them aesthetically. Yes, this is the building that houses the Connecticut Metropolitan Council of Governments (MetroCOG), but I doubt it was the front, nor did I put much thought into it. Most of Connecticut would be treated this way, and I ask your forgiveness for that. In my defense, well, if you’ve seen one office building, you’ve seen them all.

Our cache was picked up on the way into Bridgeport. The fellowship was on the way from our first morning activity, and Kittydcota, 4everlyn, and I broke off to grab a quick Letterbox Hybrid in a seaside community. We had been thinking a bit about being near beaches because one of the goals of Krissy4884 for the trip was to put her feet into the Atlantic Ocean. It seemed a good opportunity to do it while we were here, but it was cold and rainy, and we all agreed that we had time to hold out for better weather. We found a cache at a Little Free Library, so 4everlyn and I jumped out to grab it. Except we couldn’t find it! I’d found over seven thousand caches at that point; she, over twenty thousand. How could we not find this thing? Sure, it was a little rainy and cold, but it shouldn’t be that hard! As we puzzled over it for a moment, the CO pulled up from a trip to the store and gave us a hint. Soon, we found our quarry! The problem wasn’t that it was difficult; the problem was our expectation. It was a “key box.” The key box was fabric and Velcro! I’m sure some of you are thinking, “So?” I’ve seen tons of key boxes in my seven thousand caches, but none like that. I’ve always seen magnetic ones. And 4everlyn had only seen a couple and those long ago. It was a small deviation from the norm, but it was enough to throw us both for a bit! And, of course, this was the first Letterbox Hybrid I ever remember seeing where the stamp was actually handmade! Credit where credit was due: a little more effort went into this one than I normally see. From this point on, I would find that the Letterbox Hybrids would be much more like actual Letterboxes, with a lot of “take this many paces at that heading.” But that would be for later. For now, we had our quarry, so after a quick stop at Wally World for some essentials, we were off for…