The visit went well. Its highlight was supposed to b a trip to Vedic City, but Vedic City’s not that interesting, in spite of all the Web site promised it would be. A few swank buildings stuck in the middle of a wide open farm; an observatory, which is a set of disintegrating, unexplained sundials that would look like a playground if it seemed children were at all accepted there; the Global Capital of World Peace, which was marked by an upside-down Iowa flag and a gaggle of white, gangly, bearded thugs wearing loose-fitting linen who turned us away at the door. “You can go over to that building. It’s mostly offices,” they said. Other than the thugs, we saw no one else. The city so far has no public space that we could see. So we left and went to see the house that Grant Wood painted in American Gothic. We also saw several movies, including Pan’s Labyrinth and Zodiac. (For all of yesterday I could only describe Zodiac as “long” without being able to pinpoint why. It’s because the suspense is unorthodox. When it seems the police or the reporters are getting closer to the truth, the truth skitters away, and there is no conventional climax to mount the plot toward. Still, it’s pretty good. Jake Gyllenhaal is cute as a button.) All in all, I think we kept my cousin well fed and fairly entertained, in spite of the fact that Iowa’s hardly an engrossing place to visit in the middle of March, when there is no sight of spring but the absence of snow and only one sign of its coming.