When I got to the courthouse, I wasn’t sure of the proper point to photograph from. The main courthouse entrance? The county hall? The former courthouse connected to the county hall? I photographed them all and then did some research to ensure I got the right place to the best of my ability, keeping in mind that I would most likely opt for the most aesthetic choice anyway. Speaking of aesthetic …
… I don’t know if Stars Hollow is the name for an aesthetic, but if it is, then Keene has it. If it was any quainter as New England towns go, I would expect to run into Lorelai heading over to Luke’s Diner. We all wandered for a bit to grab Adventure Labs and lattes. I was a little confused why the local bakery that prided itself on being the former home of the local newspaper didn’t have said newspaper for sale. I was all touristy as I sat by the town gazebo, listening to a busker play. We all just kind of wandered and did our things for a bit since we had already accomplished our primary goal for the county. You see, Cheshire County is home to a Webcam Cache!
On the way to Keene, we stopped in Dublin at the offices of Yankee Publishing, home of the Old Farmer’s Almanac, among other publications. We parked in the lot and prepared to suss out where to stand to be caught in the webcam they operated from there. But we were distracted.
Apparently, we had arrived during some sort of Nordic training seminar on skiing. About twenty folks wearing roller skis were pushing up and slaloming down a hill beside the lot. They came to practice cross-country skiing on a course that we hadn’t noticed (and, as a result, had partially knocked over). Some of us chatted with the organizers, while others figured out the right spot for the webcam photo. We were racing the clock because, according to its website, the webcam took its photo on the hour, so we didn’t want to miss it. Upon further inspection, we learned that the website’s photos updated every hour, but we could get more current photos, taken every minute, from the live feed. All that mattered, though …
… was that the fellowship was immortalized in the camera or some kind of crap like that.
Soon after, we ended up taking a detour to find a Letterbox Hybrid while we were on the way to Keene. We got to GZ and then were given instructions to take a certain heading for a certain distance to find the cache. Not having a compass, I got a rough heading with my phone and then eyeballed the distance. The hint was “end of the line,” and we ended up with a lot of options. Was it the electrical boxes (end of wires) or the telephone pole (end of phone cables)? Was it the end of the stone wall or the end of the iron fence? Was it the cemetery? The answer was none of the above. Godot pulled out his GPS and figured out that my heading was pretty off (thank you, phone, for making me look dumb in front of my buddies!) and that the correct location was the nearby train depot.
After enjoying Keene, snacking, and sipping, we split off again. The town we planned to hit for lunch was away from the next county seat. The other car went to scout out lunch while my car shot over to…
Geocaching While Black 