Baton Rouge

This morning was just dismal. Not cold, but a heavy layer of fog lay over the river and the city. I took advantage of the time while waiting for conditions to improve to take care of some tasks. As it finally appears that the warm weather is here to stay, I did the big switch. Which meant I brought in both “closets” and transferred my warm weather clothing to the active one and my cold weather clothing to the inactive one. I also reviewed all of my stuff and determined that a number of items remained unused. Those were collected to be sent home. In addition I took care of the thing other than death that is inevitable, taxes. The IRS and the FTB don’t much care that I am taking a sabbatical, they still want their pound of flesh.

Mundane tasks taken care of, I walked the few short blocks down to the Mississippi River. It was still foggy, but starting to thin. The river is very wide here and Baton Rouge is an active commercial port. I saw a number of very long freight ships. And the train tracks parallel the river - you have to cross them to get from town to the Riverwalk. At the entrance to the Riverwalk is a reflective structure similar to the Chicago Bean. I had some fun taking distorted reflections of the river and the barges.

Baton Rouge is mainly a college town, organized around LSU. The main tourist attraction is the USS Kidd , a WWII Naval Destroyer, which has been preserved as an exhibit. For a reasonable fee, I was able to enter the ship and climb around the decks. I can’t even imagine living and working in the cramped spaces on the high seas. The whole ship is basically a structure built around weapons. Those troops have even more of my respect than they previously did.

After taking care of some shopping, I went over to Perkins Rowe . This spot had been recommended by the young woman I had met with her family at Shaggy’s bar in Gulfport. Mostly it is a cute outdoor shopping mall, but it was pleasant to walk around in the sunshine. So here is how the universe works. I heard someone say excuse me and thought maybe I had dropped something. I turned around to find Ashley, the young woman who had given me the recommendation. Turns out she works part time at one of the retail clothing outlets while continuing her studies in exercise physiology at LSU. She noticed me walking by (how random is that?) and ran out to catch me. I went in to the store and we had a long chat about a number of different subjects, including school, travel and health. She is a bright articulate young woman and it was a pleasure to spend some time with her.

As I was walking out, I saw that a band was starting to warm up on a stage set up in the central courtyard. I remembered Ashley had mentioned that they had music on Thursday evenings. I could not stay long, but I did listen for a few minutes. A crowd was starting to gather on the first warm Spring evening and it looked like a pleasant way to spend a few hours.

Tomorrow I am going to drive out to Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge.