This was not my first time in Rolla. A thousand years ago, back before the sky was blue and water was wet, I went to Basic Training at nearby, scenic Fort Lost In The Woods, Misery. But that was a long time ago and I was a very different person. I received the courthouse a little better than I had the previous few I had just been to, but I still had my reservations. My daughter noted that it wasn’t terrible, and I do not disagree with her assessment; they had done nice things with the front windows. Ultimately though, I felt its only real saving grace was that it was right next door to the old courthouse, which was better than anything I had seen thus far.
Since Missouri, as previously mentioned, is cache agnostic, I decided to cherchez la easy and go for a Virtual at a memorial in town, coincidentally the most favorited cache in the county. I assumed that, based on the town’s proximity to Leonard Wood, that it would be military in nature. Imagine my surprise to find a simplified Stonehenge! Once again, I had failed to read the cache page, but that would still not have told me that it was devoted to two monuments on the campus of the Missouri University of Science & Technology (formerly the University of Missouri-Rolla), one devoted to science, one devoted to the arts! The Stonehenge replica had been placed in 1984, based on the position of the celestial heavens. A second display, a woman and man cut from the great blocks of stone, leaving the sarsens with person shaped voids, was outside the university performing arts center. I had to visit both sites to get information, but once it was submitted to the CO, we logged it and were off again!
Unfortunately, my daughter and I missed out on seeing the world’s biggest rocking chair outside of Cuba. However, we did stop for carbohydrates and juvenile humor at the Uranus Fudge Factory and Museum. And yes, we both got fudge from … well, yeah … as we were on the way to…
