The Saline County Courthouse was handsome, but I found myself conflicted about a couple of things. The primary one was that I didn’t especially like the war memorial out front of the courthouse. The secondary one was something that hadn’t exactly occurred to me before. I have often said that I don’t like photographing courthouses with Christmas decorations. I like to consider that the photos I’m taking will be for the ages and so I don’t want to memorialize a courthouse with chintzy holiday decorations all over it. This trip taking place on and around Independence Day, I realized I was feeling the same way about the overabundance of American flags. I’d been on similar trips at the same time and flags weren’t anywhere near as overwhelming a presence before. Now don’t get me wrong: I love my country just as much (if not more) than the next person, but all the flags not only distract from the beauty of the building itself but seem to be an almost desperate attempt to broadcast patriotism. I realized that, of course, decoration was probably more over the top since it was the semiquincentennial. Yes, I could have just said the two-hundred-fiftieth anniversary, but how many chances am I going to have to use the word “semiquincentennial”?
When I entered the county, instead of turning right for Wilber, I instead turned left to head to the small town of Western. There was another large like back in Fairbury so I figured that I shouldn’t pass it up. I pulled up to a church and found an ammo can hidden behind an AC compressor. As I mentioned before, it wasn’t actually a large, but I wasn’t going to quibble. There were also two logs within. Confusion set in for a moment, but one of them read that you can sign either one, which I though was a weird choice, but not my circus and not my monkeys. I signed the more sturdy of the two, left some swag, and then set off for the courthouse. And once I was done there, I continued on toward…
Geocaching While Black 