Friday, December 14, 2007

BATON ROUGE

Avery Island wasn’t too far south of Baton Rouge, so I headed there first. I’ve driven over 2000 miles since leaving Quantico, so it was about time I was caught by the long arm of the law – going a whopping 12 mph over the speed limit.

It was actually kind of fun. Two highway patrolmen in their mid-20’s. One of them jumped out from behind a concrete barrier with a laser pointed at me and then began talking quickly into his radio. Shortly thereafter the other was standing in the middle of the 70 mph freeway flagging me down. He had a deep southern accent and was real friendly. He got all excited when I said I was headed down to the Tabasco factory. The whole thing felt like a couple kids just playing a game. If only it were.

Down at Avery Island I took a look around the Tabasco gift shop, all sorts of foods there with Tabasco in them, if only I didn’t hate the stuff. It looked like the tours of the factory were free, but they were guided and I was the only one around and I didn’t want to do a guided tour for just me, so I got out of there.

The jungle gardens were the cool part, anyways. There were all these signs for alligators, but I didn’t see jack for no alligators. And I stood there a long time too, all quiet like. But nothing. The signs were kind of fun though.




And just in case you didn’t know.




For some reason there’s a shrine to Buddha right in the middle of the lagoon.




Whoever said that turtles are slow is full of crap. There was this turtle sticking his neck out at me, all cocky like, but as soon as I lifted my camera he darted off into the water, fast as a jack rabbit.




This has got to be the sorriest Christmas decoration I’ve ever seen. Somewhere outside of Baton Rouge is this combined Taco Bell/KFC and instead of reindeer pulling a sleigh, they’ve got tacos and chicken legs pulling a tamale.




I don’t think I’ve ever realized how mini these mini temples really are. I mean, I think this temple actually covered less ground space than the stake center right across from it.



The stars kind of aligned to do a session. There are only nine a week, but I just happened to arrive about a half hour before one of them and the only one of the day. And I guess you’re supposed to bring your own names, because I didn’t see any available, but right before going in I ran into a guy who asked me if I would do one of his because he had extra. So it all worked out.




This is the exact same statue set as Atlanta. They must be standard issue to all the temples. Too bad these guys are behind bars.


1 comment:

amoreanimatedlife said...

eric.. don't ever say wtf again. That's inappropriate