Pogwatigue Perambulations: Cherry Blossom Festival

While the primary reason for a recent excursion to Washington DC was to take my aunt Char out for her birthday, it just so happened that the trip coincided with the city's Cherry Blossom Festival. I left work a little early on Friday afternoon to take the cheap bus to DC. In Philadelphia, it was cold, dreary and not at all spring-like, signs that didn't improve as I moved south. I resigned to being a week or two too early. My uncle, who picked me up at Union Station, informed me that quite the opposite was true, I had arrived pretty darn-near the peak day. The clouds broke briefly as he looped around the Tidal Basin, a honey of detour especially in rush hour/festival traffic. A closer inspection would come the next morning. Friday night we went to dinner a fantastic restaurant in Virginia, Rustico, where I had some inside connections that yielded royal treatment.

Saturday morning, I returned to Cherry Blossom Ground Zero, this time with my aunt. She parked in a garage near the White House and we walked across the National Mall. The first vibrant cluster appeared at the corner of Independence and 15th Street, right in front of the Washington Monument. A few steps letter we were on the sidewalk that encircles the Tidal Basin. Turning right, we started to make the two-plus mile circuit around the basin in a counter clockwise direction. It was early and not too crowded, but the skies were unfortunately overcast.

Full Screen Version

The trees arch over the walkway and droop toward the water. Some branches are low enough to cause a tall person—one taller than me—to duck. It would be a very bad place to ride a bike. About twenty minutes in the tidal basin loop, we came to the 1912 plantings, the original gifts from the Japanese and hence the oldest trees in the collection. A little later on we cut through the relatively new Franklin Roosevelt Memorial, my first visit there. Back along the Tidal Basin, we had exchanged views of the Jefferson Memorial for the Washington Monument. By the time we reached the former the crowds had started to congeal, but on the plus-side, soon the Sun came out from behind the clouds. In doing so, it brightened the trees all around the basin, all the more so prominent against the still steel-gray sky. The Sun arrived not a moment too soon for we were quickly back at the starting point. Leaving the Basin we retraced our steps to the car. In all, we walked 4.7 miles in two hours and twenty minutes.