I live outside a super touristy area but don’t work there; I also didn’t grow up there, so every school field trip / Sunday family day didn’t involve being herded from one museum to the next (we did infamous road trips to battlefields… another post perhaps). This means almost every time I’m heading ‘into the city’ I’m going for happy things. One I’ve heard about for years but never experienced: the annual cherry blossom blooming.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can find more information and background here. The festival dedicated to the blooming has expert opinions on when to go, complete with a camera focused on the tidal basin so visitors can check out the foliage for themselves. Last weekend was considered the final time to see the trees in their glory, so off I went to check it out.
Knowing where to go was not an issue since everyone else was moving in the same direction. The trees are located in the tidal basin near The Monument I Will Not Go Into No Matter How Much of a Chicken You Call Me Seriously I Was Here During the Earthquake. Basically a short walk from the Mall among hordes of people made all the more exciting by a stimulating game of Dodge the Car.
And when I say hordes I mean it. One of the park signs said about a million people come through DC to look at the cherry trees every year. I’m pretty sure most of them were there that Sunday. I stopped to look at a few gorgeous trees, but spent most of my time flowing along a river of people while envying families that had brought picnics to feast under the blooms. Eventually I went rogue and hopped a divider to escape. I had some beautiful pictures and a whole lot of day left.
As my train ride seemed to demand more city time than twenty minutes, I stuck with the theme of the visit and headed to the Freer.
As with any other touristy activity in the city, the only thing that really concerned me was the metro. I’m used to tourists on the trains during the weekend and I’ve ridden during rush hour so I’m used to crowded. Nothing, and I mean nothing, compared to the scene that met me after exiting the Freer. There was literally a thirty minute wait to get to the escalator leading into the station. There may actually be people still waiting there. Even the back entrance off the mall looked like Best Buy the Friday after Thanksgiving. As I stared and compared my current age with the one I’d be by the time I got back to my car, inspiration floated through the air and found my sun baked brain. Up a few blocks to another station on a different metro line. I got to enjoy a seat all the way back to my car with nary another soul in sight. Plus I got to check off a long standing item on my bucket list.
Mission accomplished.
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