The sun stood proud on its cloudless blue perch. The skyscrapers gleamed. I was trying to take a day off from bringing hard truth to the public. (And you know how that goes.) The day was supposed to be a relaxing one with a stroll downtown, a pair of hot dogs from the corner, and a trip to the art museum.

Looking at Monet’s works I wanted to go to France, pining for water lilies and women in green dresses. After catching some of O’ Keeffe’s stuff, I was oh so hungry for New Mexico. Then I saw a painting by a man named Salvador Dali. Man, is it awesome! It’s got these tigers flying in the sky, an elephant on stilts, a pomegranate, and a naked lady.

What a beautiful place. And Dali captures it nicely. It must have been so hard to paint the tigers flying like that. Always a challenge when your model is in motion. Secondly, wasn’t he afraid that the tigers would fly over to him and eat him? Painting with a pounding heart, that takes skill. The place in the painting looked magical. And I immediately wanted to go there. You think you can find fish leaping out of fruit in France? Not a chance. I bought a print of it and stared at it with great longing.

“Where was this painting done?” I asked the man at the gift shop.

“Spain,” he said.

I knew Spain was beautiful, but I had no idea it was like walking through a dream. I drove like a maniac to the airport and got on the first plane to Spain I could. When I arrived, I went into a tourist information center. The lady working there wore big, gold hoops in her ears. She had puffy eyes and bad skin. She welcomed me in warm English. She asked me some questions about what I wanted to see while I was in Spain. Did I want to buy tickets to Barcelona or Sevilla?

“I’m not sure,” I told her. I pulled out the painting. “I want to go here.”

And the hollow silence that followed seemed to frighten us both.

She tried to say something to me but only opened her mouth. I knew right away I had stumbled onto some dark secret. She told me to leave. She’s probably been threatened to keep quiet.

I called everywhere and asked if they knew where this place was.

“There’s some water, a cliff, a giant naked women with a rifle pointing at her. Have you seen it? You can’t miss it.”

Nobody knew of it. Everybody was lying. The gift shop guy probably led me astray. I started thinking about the fact that this Dali guy was probably killed for showing this secret place, bless his heart. I’d honor him by blowing this story wide open.

I traveled to Amish country, to coastal Canada, some Polynesian islands. No one would fess up, but everybody seemed to know something. This mystical location where fish and tigers and rocks all float around had to be somewhere. It would be the next big thing after the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantis. But I had no leads -- until I met a man in Wisconsin with blonde dreadlocks.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for this place,” I told him pointing to the print.

He snorted. “Yeah, buddy. I’ll bet you are.”

“I want to go there. Do you know where it is?”

Through a big smile he said, “You want to go there?”

He led me to his slovenly kept room. We sat on the floor and listened to reggae music. Then he showed me a bag of some sort of green medicine.

“If you want to go to a place like that, you got to smoke a lot of this and take some of these little babies.” He was referring to some funny looking aspirins in his hands. “You got to go to another plane, man.”

Damn right I had to get on another plane. Dali surely wasn’t painting Wisconsin in that masterpiece, and this guy didn’t know what he was talking about.

I flew to Mexico and then on to Poland; Madagascar came next. But I kept coming up empty. None of these places looked anything like Dali’s landscape.

A tip came while I was getting my shoes shined. The guy next to me was reading The Wall Street Journal. He said, “If you want to see pomegranates, go to Iran.”

In a flash I was headed to what used to be part of the Persian Empire. I got off the plane with my print in hand. A sandstorm whizzed through the city, scraping against my eyes and invading my mouth. The sun beat down on me, and my terrible Farsi led me in circles all over. I followed my hound-like instincts when I walked down a dark alley that smelled like urine. A group of men approached me, surrounding me without saying a word. I could not see their faces behind the white cloth wrapped around their mouths, not to mention the swirling sand-filled winds. They all had swords.

“Excuse me fellas, I’m trying to get here.” I showed them my print. “You know, where the flying tigers are. Wouldn’t mind seeing this lady either, if you know what I mean. Any idea what bus I take?”

Then I felt a hard blow to my head. My eyes went black, and you know what loyal readers? I was there. I was finally there. After traipsing across the globe, I was in the wonderful and fantastic realm that Dali painted so well. The lady was sleeping. The tigers were trying to eat her, but moved in slo-mo. The elephant walked around on its spindly legs, smiling. Incredible. The best vacation of my life. I highly recommend going. And now you all know how to get there. I can send you the address of the alley.

When I woke up, all my money was gone. I guess in Iran they just take the tip.