Cherry Blossom Festival

For adventure number two we decided to go down to D.C. for the Cherry Tree Festival.  When we found out we were moving lots of people told me about the Cherry Tree's in D.C.  Apparently its a really famous thing that people from all over the world come to see, though to be honest I had no idea what it was.  Don't worry I did my homework.  I guess it started in 1912 when the mayor of Tokyo gifted the country with over 3000 Cherry trees as a symbol of their growing friendship.  The trees were planted and have been celebrated every year since.

It really was beautiful!  The weather wasn't cooperating, but despite the drizzle/downpour we were still able to see plenty.  This was my first trip to D.C. and it was amazing!  The trees are mostly planted around the Tidal Basin so we only saw the monuments that circle around it.  We started with the Jefferson Monument.  This was by far my favorite.  Its just so beautiful and powerful I guess.  That sounds weird, but it was!  This was Kaden's favorite too.  I think he mostly liked all the stairs and columns, but I'm still glad we agreed.  He was so funny the entire time.  Someone gave him a map and from that point on he was The Navigator.  (The kid is really into maps.)

From there we walked to the Roosevelt Monument.  This was pretty too, but not nearly as impressive in my opinion.  Plus it had a few quotations Kimball and I thought were a little interesting.  "Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear."  Freedom from want, and fear...really?  But that's a whole other post.

Last we saw the Martin Luther King Jr. monument.  I thought they did a good job on this one.  I wish I had taken a picture of the main phrase they used because I liked it, but I can't remember it.  Something about hard things coming out of a mountain.  I was expecting it to look weird.  Kimball and I had heard lots funny things that went wrong in the making of the monument, but either they fixed all of them or they were never really bad to begin with because I didn't notice anything strange.

After that we started getting rained out and the kids were exhausted so we headed back to the car.  I'm looking forward to visiting again when its not so busy.  With the festival going on there were way too many people to take our time with anything, or maybe it was the rain.  Either way I'm looking forward to bringing all my soon to be visitors back sometime.  Hint, hint.  Plus, I haven't seen the Lincoln monument yet and that's the one I was most looking forward to!  To say it simply, its going to take a long while before we are done with D.C.

In case any of you want to see the Cherry Trees some year here are my two bits:  Either be flexible or don't make your enjoyment require you see the blossoms in full force.  I stalked the peak blooming dates for weeks deciding when we should go see them.  Our plan was to go just before the peak season began.  Hopefully catching a ton of blooms, but before the crowds were bad.  The day before we went I rechecked the dates and surprise!  They had changed the peak blooming date to be that weekend!  It worked out great for us, because we got even more blossoms than expected, but what if we had planned to go during the previous peak days?  We might have completely missed them!  D.C. has a lot to see, but I think if I had bought plane tickets to see the blossoms only to arrive and see them nearly gone I might be a little sad.  My last bit is to expect a lot of people.  It was ridiculously crowded.  Kimball visited last August and said he had the monuments to himself.  I can't wait to go back sometime after tourist season.  That's all the preaching I have today so I'll shush myself now.

Love and miss you all!

Ashley