295. Baton Rouge, East Baton Rouge Parish (LA39)

A lovely building, if I do say so myself. I do feel a certain sadness for it though. Much like Austin, this could never be the center of political life here while it shares a downtown with…

Welcome folks to the Louisiana State Capitol Building. I feel I have to give credit to this magnificent edifice even though capitol buildings are not exactly my raison d’etre here. That said, I had to come here anyway for a cache. You see, after my visit to Winnfield, my cache was chosen. A hundred eighty degrees behind me (alright, actually more like about 120 degrees to the left but who’s counting?) is…

…the grave of the Kingfish himself. I happily availed myself of the virtual there, completing the circle. Sometimes Deus vults exactly what will happen. Then again, there were other caches here that proved tempting. Since I was close enough, it was time for another one, specifically…

…the USS Kidd. Unlike with the Texas, I didn’t go onboard because being in enclosed spaces right now isn’t the best idea. But I couldn’t resist visiting. The greater tragedy, unfortunately, is that I have to go back to Baton Rouge because the one cache that I managed to miss was the most important one, the Louisiana Parish Challenge. I went to the GZ and gave it a good look, but didn’t find it. I contacted the cache owner and it turns out that I just didn’t go quite far enough down the fence it’s on. For the lack of twenty feet, I have to go back. Thus is life. It’s not like it’s the first time a mistake has meant a return to a far off locale. And it’s not like it isn’t on the way to the places I haven’t been yet. But I had limited daylight so I needed to get going again. I put the City of the Red Stick in the rearview mirror, knowing I would grace its streets again, and, this being my easternmost location of the trip, began the westward return toward home, stopping on the way in…