I went to the National Archives today. It wasn't exactly what I expected, but I did only go to the visitor's center. I was thinking it would be a very large research library with some records I could touch and some that were only for professional fingers in gloves and what not.

I saw some letters written by George Washington, Abe Lincoln etc. They seem to be the most important presidents to speak of around. There were some baby pictures of former presidents- and a video of George W. when he was a baby- kinda cute. There were some old birth records, pretty cool looking. And of course the most important things were the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Declaration wasn't looking so good. The lights are very dim to maintain the documents, but considering even that the ink was very faded. The Constitution was looking much more robust.

There were some rent-a-cops standing around looking bored. I had my doubts about the authenticity of those documents. Would they really put those valuable documents under a piece of glass and let anybody walk in and terrorize them? Let's face it the terrorists are pretty sneaky. The guards did make me lift up my pants legs to be sure I wasn't concealing scissors in my socks when I went in. Maybe they are more diligent than they look.

Across the street from the National Archives is the National Sculpture Garden. To be honest I've been pretty impressed with this city, but something was certainly lacking from the National Sculpture Garden. There was an ice skating rink- kinda cool, there was a set of six stone chairs that were alright, the giant spider- sounds cooler than it was, the giant type writer eraser- well I didn't even know what it was- and I'm old so I should know. I imagine younger folks just think it is some random thingy-majig. The best thing for sure was the steel tree.

While in the Sculpture Garden I saw a chubby little squirrel.  It was looking so cute, and I thought about the chubby little birds I had seen yesterday.  I was thinking about other things that were chubby and cute as I walked toward the Museum of Natural History when I saw another cute, chubby little squirrel on the sidewalk.


He looked at me expectantly- I told him I didn't have any food.  I told him outloud, which may have been why the guy walking down the side walk turned and looked at me, not really like I was crazy but more like he thought something funny was about to happen.  I stopped on the sidewalk to take off my bag to get my camera out.  The squirrel came a little closer.  I had my hand in my bag when the squirrel started climbing up my leg. 


I screamed.  The guy on the side walk turned to look at me from about 50 feet away- he was safe.  A woman was walking toward me, she said, "Oh, be careful, they bite."  I said, "AHHH!  It's crawling on me!"  I was flashing through all kinds of bad squirrel scenerios- squirrel bite, squirrel in my bag, squirrel in my jacket, squirrel on my head . . .


I stood very still and the squirrel saw I was more useless than a tree and jumped back to the grass. 

I took a few steps, and thought, "Well, I might as well get the picture now"- and he started coming at me again!  That little demon squirrel!  I told him to back off- took a few more step away, snapped this picture and got out of there quick.


When I got back my friend asked me how it was, I said, "It was really good except for that incident with the squirrel."