Yeah, this place is great -- now when do we eat?

Sport and LegoGuy have this endearing little thing they do when we go to museums. I always forget about it until we're actually at one of these monuments to history, and then I have the urge to hit myself in the forehead and say, "Oh, yeah."

They have a race to see who can get through the museum the fastest.

SO and I rediscovered this at the Clinton Presidential Library. We'd chatted with the security guards while they checked our camera bag for explosives, and then visited with the friendly volunteers while the boys made a mad dash for the escalators. We'd barely made our way through the Campaign exhibit and past the Cabinet room full-scale replica before Sport was back, bouncing from one leg to the other.

"Wonder what's on the third floor?" he asked.

"Honey, pace yourself. Take a look at all this stuff. Hey, here's a letter from Bono!"

That held his attention for about 5 seconds. Quickly, I passed him off to his dad and hid out in the Timeline alcove. Then, I ran into LegoGuy.

"Is President Clinton dead?"

"No, he's not dead. Why don't you spend some time at one of these interactive stations and learn something about him?"

The family gathered in the Orientation Theater to watch a short film on Clinton's life and political career. Then it was off to the 3rd floor to see a reconstruction of the Oval Office and keepsakes from world leaders presented to the 42nd American President.

"When are we going to go eat?" It's Sport again.

"It's only 10:30, kiddo. Can you give us another half hour?"

My favorite moment came at the end of our tour. I talked one of the volunteers into summoning an archivist from the bowels of the library. Dana used her special magnetic key to take the family past the security doors and into a section reserved for researchers. She told us she was one of 9 archivists employed at the Clinton Library. Her background was in Political Science/Museum Studies, and she and answered all my questions with enthusiasm.

"So few of our visitors are interested in how the documents are organized and accessed," Dana said, and went on to explain their cataloging and classification system, which is decided by the White House of Office and Records Management (WHORM). It sounded arbitrary and chaotic to someone used to the rigidity of AACR-2 and LC classification schemes. On the other hand, it sounded like a completely fascinating job. "Some of our research projects can last up to 2 years. We become experts in the subject over that period of time. I could write a book!" Dana trilled.

The boys were sprawled on a couple of leather couches, glazed looks in their eyes. I took pity on them and wrapped up the visit.

We walked down to the gift store where I bought an "I miss Bill" bumper sticker. I'm thinking of sticking it on my dad's car, right above the "Loveya Dubbya" that graces his back window.