There are malls, and then there is THE Mall, where we spent today, at the National Archives and later at the Smithsonian…more accurately at one tiny, little, bitty almost insignificant part of the Smithsonian. And, since you, like Irene and I, are a seasoned traveler and have been here before, you know exactly what I’m talking about and what I will say next, ‘cuz everybody says it, they just have to, they have no choice….the Mall is the most amazing place in the world, beyond any superlatives, undoubtedly it would be one of the natural wonders of the world if it were only natural but it’s better than that, it’s man-made and as grand as anything man has EVER made, it’s close to being something direct from God, something so absolutely cool that no designer could have figured it out in advance, it’s the Matrix and 2001 Space Odyssey rolled into one but it ain’t a movie, it’s lobster tail with drawn butter but it ain’t food, oh, I don’t know….it’s like my good buddy Larry says about the California Fair in Sacramento every year when I ask him why the hell he’s insisting we all go AGAIN….”AJ, it’s THE FAIR”….and, hey, same to you, “Dude, it’s THE MALL”….home of everything precious to us as Americans and not only a work of art but also the working home of what’s happening now, as we’re walking down towards the Senate building I know that Sotomayor is being grilled by Republicans as to whether she’ll make a fit Supreme Court Justice, (she will), that one of Obama’s daughters is walking the dog around the White House grounds (the woman right behind us is talking about seeing her), there is the most scintillating, world-class exhibition of Homer Winslow’s paintings anywhere ever and NOBODY is in there to see them except Irene and I because they all have equally wonderful things to go see, like the original Magna Carta, the Declaration, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, displays about Budda that go back before Christ, archives of illuminated manuscripts that were today’s news 15 CENTURIES ago, 5,800 species of animals in the world’s best zoo, gardens representing plants from every state in the Union, impossibly all growing at once and all healthy as weeds, a battlefield map of Gettysburg and the battle fought there that’s darn near bigger than our RV and that you can walk on and a film clip of Nixon together with Elvis Presley talking about whether or not they have to cut his hair and current research about the Grassy Knoll and a film about the way the Archive curators helped undo the Nazi Gold coverup a few years ago and a summary of the research into flying saucers and Shaquille O’Neil’s basketball shoe….and….and…

Shaq's Shoe!

…and OH my gosh….how I DO run on. But do you get that EVERYTHING is here? Between the Archives and the Smithsonian there’s a beautiful park containing dozens of exquisite statues and a chlorinated pool where you can take your shoes off to soak your feet, and so many people were doing it, it felt like we were in Lourdes except instead of prayers I heard people talking about what they had seen and everybody was talking about something different.

"Where Do We Go Next?"

One poor little rich girl near me, a teenie-bopper wannabe all of maybe 14 but wearing a grand’s worth of casual elegance, was grilling her daddy mercelessly about what’s this, what’s that. This kid knew nothing, she didn’t know that Gerald Ford had been Nixon’s eventual choice for and served as VP, she didn’t know who Nixon was, for heaven’s sake, but her curiosity had been awakened by somethng that wasn’t on an Ipod, something that couldn’t be captured by Tweeting, something that was over and above texting….she was waking up to her own country – and her father, bless his heart, was doing his undereducated, overmoneyed best to explain his way out of a trap of his own creation. And no matter how poor a job he was doing, and frankly it was pretty piss-poor, he was giving it that old Mississippi State try, and both he and his daughter wouldn’t forget THIS day very soon, and neither would anybody else in their family, and for the most part neither would any of the other dozens of families we saw, heard and watched during the long, tiring day, and neither will Irene and I, truth be known, and tomorrow we get to get up even earlier and go do even more of this, bless us both for being such lucky ducks.