The intermittent thundershowers did not make it an ideal day for walking around some of Washington's more splendid buildings but circumstances dictated it. First, there was a call at the Old Executive Office Building to renew my White House press pass with the Secret Service.
The OEOB, as it is known, is where most of the White House staff work. With its Second Empire style, it is an oddity among the neo-classical federal buildings of the capital and "rises like a tiered wedding cake", as the guide books say.
The OEOB used to house the State, Army and Navy departments before they outgrew it and went their separate ways. The new press pass has a hologram of an American eagle sitting on my shoulder, which Bridget, who supplied it, agreed was odd.
Then it was into the White House next door flourishing the new pass and a quick visit to the press area which used to be the swimming pool and is cramped and grotty. Visiting journalists cannot believe how awful the working conditions are for the elite White House press corps. But it is beside the West Wing and the Oval Office and the press corps has resisted all efforts to move to better quarters in the OEOB.
The Leinster House "pol corrs" have resisted similar blandishments to keep them at a distance from the politicians. Now it was time to head for the formal opening of Washington's newest and biggest public edifice - the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Centre at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It was a 10-minute walk away and the route took in more American history in the form of the classical Treasury Building, with more Ionic columns than you would see on the Acropolis, and the enormous Commerce Department building which incongruously has the National Aquarium in the middle of it. This is the Federal Triangle area, noted at the beginning of the century for its brothels and saloons mixing with theatres, newspaper offices and banks.
In an effort to clean up the Triangle, eight monumental buildings housing museums, national archives and government offices were erected in a frenzy of construction in the late 1920s and 1930s, until the Great Depression called a halt.
What was to have been the 11acre Great Plaza was paved over and was an ugly parking site for 50 years. The sight so offended President Kennedy as he drove down Pennsylvania Avenue in January 1961 on his inauguration day that he described it as of "surpassing ugliness". He called for action but little was done until an unlikely combination of Republican President Reagan and Democrat Senator Pat Moynihan pushed through plans for the development in 1987.
It has taken 11 years to transform a hole in the ground into what is now being hailed as "the Crown Jewel of Pennsylvania Avenue". The original plan for the building was to combine federal offices with cultural and trade centres which would "represent the dignity and stability of the federal government". The cultural part with theatres and galleries was dropped because it would not be self-supporting.
At 3.1 million square feet, the building is the second largest government structure after the Pentagon across the Potomac. It has cost $818 billion, or twice the original cost, and opened four years behind schedule. But it is an architectural wonder. The begrudgers point out that it is dedicated to the president who boasted that he would reduce "big government". It will also house the Environmental Protection Agency which he wanted to abolish.
This did not stop Nancy Reagan being present to represent her Alzheimers-stricken husband on the big day. Up on the podium in the giant atrium she looked a slight figure in her favourite red surrounded by Democrats headed by President Clinton.
There were enough familiar faces from the Reagan days to make her feel more at ease - Bob Dole, George Shultz, Mike Deaver, Jack Kemp, Colin Powell. It's a good time to be a Reaganite as Washington's National Airport has also been re-named after him. President Clinton gallantly took the 76year-old Nancy Reagan's arm to bring her to the podium and then praised her husband's record in bringing about the end of the Cold War. There is a large chunk of the Berlin Wall in the new building to remind visitors of this.
Mr Reagan now passes his days signing books and photographs in his California office but sadly cannot recognise his family and friends. Nancy gives him loving care and it is said that he cannot even recognise her. In her speech, she recalled their trip to Ireland in 1983 and what happened in Ballyporeen. "He discovered they had dedicated a pub to him. He loved that and was flattered, if a little surprised. He said later, `I know presidents get things named after them, but I bet I'm the first president to have a pub named after him'."
You felt she was really saying that he got more of a kick out of the Ronald Reagan pub in a small Irish village than he would have out of the monumental building on Pennsylvania Avenue. When I pass it in future it will bring back a good night in that pub after a day lost in a mist on Galtymore.