15. Giddings, Lee County

OF COURSE this county was named for Robert E. Lee!  And OF COURSE there’s a monument dedicated to him!

Of course, this touches a certain nerve in me.  The funny thing is that it’s not Robert E. Lee specifically.  There actually is a county seat called Robert Lee (Coke County), but it’s named for Col. Robert Lee, the American officer and eventual hero of the Mexican War, who commanded anti-Indian troops here in Texas and camped nearby.  Sure, Robert went on to do some questionable things, but he was a hero once so I can credit that despite the rest.  But that’s neither here nor there right now…

Strangely enough, there’s not many caches in town so I decided to cherchez la cemetery (interesting fact: the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard is that a graveyard is attached to a church).  It was standard enough to be found, but it was probably a hair harder than the two stars it was rated.  The really odd thing was how many people had never seen anything like it before when it’s uncommon but hardly special.  Log was signed and I headed off to…