Sunrise at the hotel.

During the past few years we have been following the Cherry Blossom festival from sunny but not-so-green-and-flowery Colorado.  This year, we decided to go see the cherry blossoms over Easter weekend.  We got a nice hotel in the Herndon area for Friday and Saturday; our room overlooked a small pond with geese.  We could also see the sun rise between the office buildings located across the parking lot.

Photo time at the blossoms.

Saturday morning we took the metro into DC and went in search of breakfast.  Louisa wanted bagels; Tony had the brilliant idea to search for “yummy bagels” and found Brooklyn Bagels.  The shop was small inside, but we found a table by the bagel making activities and happily ate breakfast while watching the cooks prep huge batches of bagels.

Not all the cool flowers at the festival were cherry blossoms.

After breakfast we continued on towards the National Mall and the Smithsonian.  I don’t think either of us really knew how many people would be in DC this weekend.  The answer – a lot.  There were even traffic cops out, but they were policing the pedestrians (who have apparently never heard of crosswalks or right of way) rather than the cars.  Despite the crowds, we managed to make our way towards the tidal pool.  Along the way we found a tulip garden with several dozen different tulip beds.  We enjoyed walking around the tidal pool, past the JFK and Jefferson memorials, and towards a park behind the Jefferson memorial.  There had been a lot of rain the past week, and the park’s sidewalk along the river had been flooded.  The aquatic birds, however, did not seem to mind and appeared to enjoy being able to swim up to picnic tables.

View of Jefferson Memorial from the basin.

We wandered back towards town and over to a Potbelly Sandwich shop for lunch.  We decided to wander through the Smithsonian section, then back towards the cherry blossoms.  Word of warning – when there are this many people around, trying to access any of the Smithsonian museums is not necessarily a great idea, since pedestrian traffic jams are quite common.  However, we did find a respite from the crowds at Union Station.  We also found dinner at a Japanese place in the bottom food court.

Easter walks are fun in DC.

Happy Easter!  On Sunday we first went towards Mt. Vernon.  However, the crowds there were prohibitive, so we briefly stopped at a local park (and saw an osprey flying!) before heading back into the city.  We got our metro passes, and took it to the Arlington exit.  We wandered over the bridge, and took a break along a shady, cool wall near the Lincoln memorial.  We eventually made our way back towards the cherry blossoms behind the FDR memorial, and found a little tree to sit under along the river looking back towards the river and the bridge.

Our drive home was relatively quick and easy, and included a stop at Five Guy’s.