Humid City... Is Humid

I find this piece of Southern wisdom to be quite true: “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” And when it gets like it’s been the last couple of days in Washington, D.C., where one feels more like one is swimming along the National Mall than walking… Well. I’m pining for my relatively dry western city.

This is a nice little place I found in my wanderings. Someone famous must live there, because security is really tight! And it must be inspiring to the occupant to look out every morning and see this…

“Make us proud, kid. We’re pulling for ya.”

Most of the people milling about the White House seemed to be genuinely in awe. I only saw one guy in a “Nobama” t-shirt. I can only assume he was arrested, had his guns taken away, and was then killed by a death panel.

Meanwhile, in the Smithsonian’s National Natural History Museum…

I was worried that I’d be hearing a lot of people dissing all the evolution displays. But as far as I could tell, nobody did. Everyone seemed genuinely interested. Of course, if one was of a religious bent, one probably wouldn’t be there in the first place.

Well, some people seemed to be worshiping a particular icon. The Hope Diamond is in that case. Biggest in the world (I think. Don’t know, don’t care.) I found the huge flock of people around the diamond more interesting than the diamond itself.

Hey! Can’t leave out the dinosaurs!

But far from the maddening crowds, in a deserted corner of the museum, I found something really neat.

See those little shells and such? 500 million years old. Humans? We’ve been here at most 200 thousand years. It’s a hard concept to wrap your brain around. All the kids were running around looking at the dinosaurs and the whales… I was stuck on these ancient fossils. Little tiny sea creatures that 500 million years later would evolve into a species that can say, “Hey, look at those little tiny sea creatures!”

Tomorrow I start my trip home. I’ve had a fun stay here, but it’s time to get back on the road, and move on to the next town with a corrupt sheriff terrorizing the populace, and use my kung fu moves to put him in his place.