Cherry Blossoms, oh my!

When I mentioned to a friend that I was going to DC at the end of March, she told me that I had to make sure to see the cherry blossoms. I looked at the cherry blossom festival website, and figured it would be worth a trip, but I didn't really think it would be all that impressive. I mean, so many festivals turn out to be disappointing. Well, I was wrong. The cherry blossoms were incredible.

S. and I ended up going to see them twice, once on Sunday when everything was gray and misty and dew-covered (see final picture), and once on Tuesday, when the sun was out and the blossoms were all fluffy.

There were a lot of people both times, out enjoying themselves and the sights. And I can't blame them. The only thing that would have made it better was if the cherry trees smelled as good as lilacs!

Magnolias in DC

DC is a couple of weeks behind, spring-wise, to Arkansas. This was great news for us, because it meant that all the flowering trees were at their peak. The famous ones are the cherry trees, and I will get to them later in the week, but the other beautiful ones were the magnolias.

S. and I set out to explore the Mall area, and our first stop was the garden outside the Smithsonian Castle (picture of that later in the week, with the buildings themed post). There, the trees were thick with blossoms - see top picture - and the ground was covered with a light snow of petals. We have this variety of magnolias in Arkansas, but according to S., the frost always gets to them before they can come to full flower - and that is what happened this year. So it was nice to see them in such numbers in DC.

Later in the day, we came to some large building, surrounded by a fence - I wonder what it could be? I was excited to see the bee hive in the grounds, right next to another magnolia. The hive was busy, and you could see the bees going in and out, even from a distance.
By this point in the day, the sun had come out, the dew had dried, and the flowers were wide open. Just lovely.
Stay tuned this week for cherry blossoms, interesting buildings, monuments and memorials, and a tour of NPR.

I'm back!

We (my co-workers and I) made it back from Washington D.C. safely last Thursday. Our plane made an unscheduled stop in Little Rock, instead of Memphis, because the Memphis airport was closed due to bad weather. At first, the Powers That Be said we might be able to get off, instead of going back to Memphis, where we would have had to wait until Friday for a flight or rent a car to get home. Then, They said no, we had to stay on the plane, because there weren't any stairs available - which was completely bogus because I could see 4 sets just sitting there out my window. When the 25 or so of us for whom LR was our final destination started to protest, the flight attendant and pilot got working and eventually we were allowed to get off. Our luggage, however, had to go back to Memphis. The very unhelpful woman at the airline desk said that there was no way to check if our luggage had arrived, apart from coming back to the airport. This is not correct, as I learned by pursuing it on the computer and phone on Friday morning.

Anyway, we got back, and got our luggage. I'll be putting up pictures all week. Now, it is back to work. Whee!