Cherry blossoms

My Sunday morning walk was cancelled this morning, so instead I suggested we go walk around the tidal basin. Earlyish, so we could maybe find a parking space at the FDR Memorial and not have to walk so far to GET to the tidal basin to see the cherry blossoms.

Great idea. Everybody was in for it. We drove downtown and ... realized that today was the 40th annual Cherry Blossom 10-miler.

Ug. Not a problem, really, it was nice that all those roads were blocked off, in some respects. It was easy to cross roads that were closed. But in other respects .... the extra 15,000 runners (and their friends and families!) makes for one crowded area!! And Parking was at a premium. And we couldn't get on the road to get to the FDR Memorial. It was closed for the race.

We ended up parking about a mile away from the tidal basin. We did get to take a little jaunt by the Washington Monument, which is, of course, a treat in and of itself.



Walk, walk, walk. We entered the Tidal Basin by the paddle boats, still locked up as it was not yet 9 am. And the walk around the Basin commenced. There were many photo opportunities. The girls loved getting their photos taken with the trunks, the blossoms, the stumps of the cherry trees.



We got a family photo taken by a woman who'd been following us on the path.




The next best thing after the blossoms was the dogs. Oh, my, the dogs. Everywhere! They petted every single dog they could get their hands on. Most owners were so nice and so patient with them, more than me, after stopping for our 500th dog. But finally, we reached the FDR memorial.

C6 liked climbing on the big rocks. You can't see it here but she is atop of the pile of jumbled rocks that say "I HATE WAR"




Q4 liked the statues. The first is of a man sitting on a chair listening to the radio. I explained that he was listening to the radio, worrying about the depression. Q4 wondered at first if they used a real chair, then she observed that if she got inside his arms it would look like he was giving her a hug. So she did. You can see her fiddling with the radio knobs while inside this hug. The third is a photo with a statue of Fala, FDR's dog.



We ripped them away from the memorial and dragged them back onto the Tidal Basin for more photos, dogs, and walking.






We breezed through the George Mason Memorial, to which I'd never been. Both girls enjoyed it, it was a break from the walking.



We hit the Jefferson Memorial, which was packed. By this time the road race was over, streets were opening up, and all the runners and their families and anybody and everybody else in town was down on the Tidal Basin. It was very very crowded. And Q4 was beginning to droop. She'd walk, walk, waaaalk, and kind for drop into a duck walk and flop on the ground. She appeared to be falling asleep on her feet. She didn't complain or ask to be picked up, but we did, because she was so pathetic. And usually just a short carry would help and she could walk a block or so again. Later C41 measured it and it was about 4.5 miles. No wonder she was tired!!

Final photos:






Now I've gotten my cherry blossom fix that will satisfy me for a fair number of years until I've forgotten them again. Now I'd like to go to an apple blossom festival ... wouldn't that smell divine?