Less About Caching Than Counties

Ladies, gentlemen, or however you personally identify, I have recently encountered what might (or might not) be the dumbest question that I actually am giving significant thought to. I have recently learned that I have unintentionally been making a mistake in my county naming. I knew that some counties have very specific legal spellings (I one day want to make a challenge to visit both Doña Ana and Coös Counties, the only ones with diacritics), but it turns out that some counties have been misspelled by the Census Bureau in their official list and some are misspelled by the counties themselves on their courthouses, signs, and even documents. So, I am considering whether or not to go back through my own archives and fix those mistakes or leave them be. I don’t think I would be blamed for any mistake. If a county’s website misspells it, I can hardly be blamed, right? Very few (most likely nobody) will note the difference between Dewitt (wrong) and DeWitt (correct). Heck, my great-great-grandfather died there and it’s wrong on his death certificate! I’m 98% sure that none of you out there, but I imagine there’s an outside possibility that a map/county fanatic may one day call me to task for it.

I realized an interesting thing last month when my streak hit day 3000 (#humblebrag). Unless something goes catastrophically wrong, I should be hitting county 1000 before the end of the year. I’ve been planning a trip to [REDACTED] so I can do the work to place my Virtual, so I’m going go there and I figure I might grab a few counties while I’m out there… Actually, I’m planning one of the biggest trips I’ve done, certainly the longest I’ve done alone. I’m going to fly out there, do what I need to do, and then spend a week around the area and then driving back to Texas. I will give no further information on that trip; a clever person could put two and two together and figure out where I’m going and you all are nothing if not clever (#shamelessflattery). I’ll be hitting the Comma Club while I’m out there.

All that said, because of changes in my real life, I am about to be afforded opportunities for travel that I didn’t enjoy previously. As you can imagine, I already have fancy plans (and pants to match!) for the rest of this year and the entirety of 2027. With luck, I will be cranking my county numbers to undreamt of heights (which is probably impossible since I already have over a year almost completely unbroken of new counties in the archives from May 2020 to February 2022, but whatever)! I will, uncharacteristically since I don’t like to talk much about where I’m going in the future, note that you will be seeing more entries in both the near and farther futures from somewhere you probably wouldn’t expect. You see, my older daughter started college in August, and her school of choice is in Missouri. So, guess what? I’m going to be working Missouri on and off for the foreseeable future since I’m going to have to visit my little girl up there. Of course, I’ll also be dipping toes into surrounding areas as well, so expect to see more Iowa, Illinois, and Tennessee coming down the pipe.

That is all. Go back to your regularly scheduled programming.