A Trip to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington

Usually, I hesitate to make any really huge, committed plans during the wintertime. I try to be active during the warmer months, but there is a definite lull during the winter months, because I am afraid of massive winter storms cancelling flights, or keeping me in a hotel, stranded, trying to wait out the storm.

That is enough for me. I usually just wait it out, wait for warmer times.

But spring is here, and I began to feel that itch again. I think I mentioned during a recent blog entry (the one about the trip to the Barclays Center to see the Nets), that I had not even left New Jersey for the first couple of months of 2013. Now, it is April, and things have been warming up. I was told that my son, Sebastien, was off from school this week. As it turns out, he is off from school next week but, by the time I learned about it, a hotel room and tickets to an event had already been purchased, although I will get to that in a moment.

So, I began to think about trips that he and I could do together. But since I am planning a big trip, and in just a couple of months to boot, I could not take any more of my limited days off. So, it would have to be a short trip. If need be, I could call out one day, perhaps. But the prospect did not thrill me. Still, I kept my options open for a nice trip of a two or three day span.

Often times, that has been my routine in traveling during the course of a typical year, for well over a decade now. No big, huge trips of a week or more. Just a bunch of smaller trips, often times three, four, or five days. Maybe a couple of weekend road trips thrown in.

I guess that if I were a boxer, this strategy would be like relying on a constant jab, rather than the one, knockout punch, a la Tyson.

I thought about Washington, and the Cherry Blossom Festival that I have always wanted to go to. All of those free museums, and the National Mall, and the monuments. It was a quicker drive than almost all of the other locations that I was thinking about, so it made sense.

But my mind was not made up.

I thought about Montreal, and then Toronto and Buffalo. Maybe I could take my son to see the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton! But, it's early April. In Canada. How colorful and enjoyable would strolling through gardens be? What if it was overcast and cold? Hell, what if it would snow?

I thought about Washington again.

Then I thought about Boston. That could be nice. I always love Boston, and usually try to take at least a good trip or two per year to Boston, or at least some other part of New England. Maybe that would work?

But it's colder there too. What if it snowed up there?

Once again, I thought about Washington. Particularly about those pictures that I had seen of the colorful cherry blossoms that framed the waters that these surround.

Washington it is.

But here's the thing: it has been an unusual, colder than normal spring. When I first made reservations for this trip, I figured it would warm up enough to not be an issue. I had heard somewhere that the peak of the Cherry Blossom Festival was expected to be in late March. Later, I heard that the peak was pushed off to that first week in April. Cherry blossoms usually grow not in excessive heat, but in the cooler part o spring, so maybe there would still be a chance, no? Or was that just wishful thinking?

The closer it got to the time of the trip, and the more worried I became. It was still chilly. I'm not usually one to complain about cold springs, but now, for the first time this year, it was really starting to bother me. I had made a point of going this time of the year to see the famous Washington Cherry Blossom Festival, and I really wanted my son to be this!

But alas! The devil fools with the best laid plans, right?

Yes, we got down there, and it was still quite chilly. I looked around, and there probably was more vegetation evident, but not all that much. Finally, when we managed to actually get to DC itself, I was able to glimpse the area of the monuments and memorials, where the cherry blossoms actually were.

What did I see? Not much.

There were a few of them, here and there. But mostly, these were few and far between. It was mostly just based on a couple of glimpses from afar (really, from the car), but it was enough to confirm my suspicions that it was still too early. I continued on to the hotel in neighboring Alexandria, Virginia, admittedly a bit dispirited.

That evening, there was a game to go to that evening (I'll review that in the near future hopefully). But the next day, we would go see it for ourselves.

The next day, it seemed a bit warmer when I stepped out of the hotel room in the morning. It seemed promising, and perhaps (hopefully) might help some more cherry blossoms to come out).

But here was something weird: by the time we got to Washington, it was cold. Chilly and breezy. For some reason, I still managed to be surprised.

We found parking (but it was extremely difficult and annoying!), and then headed towards the Jefferson Memorial. I decided to forego the jacket, almost stubbornly trying to will the spring. But it did not last long. When we left and headed towards the FDR Memorial (which was near the parked car), I went ahead and sat in the car for a few minutes to warm up, then put the jacket on.

The visit resumed, and my son showed once again that he loved water fountains, which figures prominently in the FDR Memorial. This was when I first began to feel a bit worn down, because he wanted to stop for every little thing. My legs began to feel it a bit, and overall, my frame of mind started to be fatigued, more than anything else.

There were a couple of trees that had some blossoms on them, and I was able to take some pictures. they were hardly at their peak, but it was enough to at least make it feel not like a total loss. I felt very blessed to have at least this much to work with.

It took a while, but we did make it to the MLK Memorial. By that time, I was looking at my watch, a bit horrified at how quickly the time was moving. You see, there was a long laundry list of things that I had intended for us to visit, and we had done but a fraction of them. Perhaps I had underestimated the ability of a child to throw your plans out?

I began to have to hurry him along, which unfortunately, involved the process of raising my voice a bit. Getting tough, if you will. That is a part of parenting, though. We finally did get moving, and went to the reflecting pool, in between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

Again, he loves water. This was not a water fountain per se, but anything that has to do with water, he loves to explore. My little son!

There was a nice couple that lent him a few crackers for the ducks. Somehow, he managed to get one of them, the female duck, to literally eat out of his hand! I wish I had managed to get that videotaped! It would be such a pleasure not only to relive that, but also to hear the laughter and pure joy which came afterwards!

Off to the Lincoln Memorial, and this was unbelievably packed. I have been there numerous times before, and have seen it crowded, but I can't recall ever seeing it quite so crowded as it was this time around. It affected our visit.

So, he wanted to explore some strange, far off corner of Lincoln Center. I was getting very tired, and said no. We needed to try to get going. Time was running incredibly short.

Heading back to the Potomac, we finally ran into some really wonderfully colorful blossom trees, and managed to take a few nice pictures that are included here.

Unfortunately, however, time had gone by so quickly, that we really did not have time (and I did not have the energy) for anything else. I decided it would be best just to grab something to eat (and I had a specific place in mind - Ben's Chili Bowl, which I reviewed on this blog just yesterday). Our trip to Washington was nearing it's end, and the cherry blossoms that we had wanted to center the trip around had been, instead, few and far between.

But the urge to make another visit in the relatively near future is stronger than ever!