I wasn’t especially enamored of the courthouse in Lebanon, but after Buffalo, I was willing to take whatever I got because it (probably) couldn’t be worse. That said, it’s a government center moreso than a courthouse, but the difference is academic at most, nonexistent at least. One of these days, when I have time, energy, and greater interest, I intend to figure out if there is an actual difference between a government center and a courthouse. I’m sure there is no functional difference, but I am a bit curious why places take one route over the other. No doubt it’s a modern innovation; I can’t imagine Gilded Age communities would even know what a government center was. I was also (for lack of a better term) rattled by a strange display of friendliness on the way into town. Driving through a small community on the outskirts of town, I drove past a church with lots of parishioners and their children outside, the adults all talking, the kids running around and playing. As I passed by, a group of half a dozen of the adults all turned to me in unison and waved as I went on. Who does that? Was that weird and rurally cultish? Or am I just too urban and jaded for small town life? I would probably estimate it’s about 40/60. I will assume they meant well and were just acknowledging the obvious stranger. And I recognize it probably doesn’t get much stranger than me in those parts.
When I went for the cache, I drove a little too far south and ended up having to turn back onto an old stretch of Route 66 until I got the parking lot of an industrial park. Yes, one of the businesses there was a car mechanic with a chicken car but I digress. Normally, I would have gone for the easiest cache I could get but there was one with a whole lot of favorite points. I felt I couldn’t resist it, especially since it seemed a simple jaunt across a field with a Terrain rating to match. That turned out to be the wrongest thing I thought all day. What once was a well mowed field when the cache was placed in 2009 (or more likely when the last satellite photo was taken) had become a waist high field of grass and brambles. Not that big a deal, I thought to myself. I’d certainly been through more than that before. I set off. Even though it really wasn’t that far, the grasses and vegetation got thicker as I continued, poking and pulling at my pants. I took several approaches trying to get through, hoping that I might get lucky and stumble upon a path or something. Eventually, the vegetation turned into bushes and a treeline that I couldn’t figure a way through. When I finally got close enough to the treeline to see the cache, I also saw the barbed wire fence in the trees, too. I spent at least twenty minutes pushing my way through the sea of grass but eventually decided to head back to the car and reconsider my decisions. Even though I’m not usually a victim of sunk cost fallacy, I felt I had spent too much time trying for this one to let it go. I soon realized there were really only two options. The first was to go back on the highway, park on the side, and go down an embankment to get to it but I quickly ruled that out for safety reasons. The other came upon me with a bit of creeping dread because I would have to break one of my most seriously held rules to do it. There was an approach I could make, but I would have to make it from the parking lot, brimming with cars, of a church in the middle of services. One of the first rules I ever laid down is that I don’t mess with a church on a Sunday. The last thing I need it to look like a suspicious outsider with a tight knit community all looking on and worried that I might be doing something to their place of worship. I rationalized it a little; I wouldn’t be near the church itself, just parking so I could go into the field. With a sigh and some hypervigilance, I drove behind the church to the back of the lot and parked in the farthest corner I was able. I walked away from the church, on the back side of the treeline I had been at before. The grass was much easier, but the thorns and brambles took a further toll on my pants as I trudged through. But trudge along I did until I came upon a slightly easier geotrail that led me to my quarry…
…a giant “ammo can”! I could see why it was so favorited. I cracked it open (which turned out to be a little more involved than expected) and signed the log. Against my better judgment, I grabbed a couple of trackables inside to bring them back to Texas. I idly wondered if it might have been easier to park on the highway as I closed it back up and started heading back to the car. Was it all worth it? If I had been with a group of friends, I would have unquestionably said yes. Alone on the road, though? Maybe, maybe not. I burned a lot of time and and I significantly bent one of my most serious caching rules. But Route 66 led me to the supposedly biggest ammo can in Missouri, so I’ll call that a win. Victory, as I have said on many occasions, requires no explanation. I got back on I-44, having finished with my farthest extent of my day, and went southwest towards home and…
Geocaching While Black 