Did you know 2024 year is an important year for the D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival?

It is the last year before major sea wall renovations force the park service to take down over one hundred and fifty trees. Don’t worry. Trees will be re-planted. This legitimately needs to be done due to flooding on one side of the Tidal Basin.

It isn’t the entire Tidal Basin that is flooding. It’s just the area on one side of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, which I will show you further down in the post.

I wanted to go down there and see it before it becomes a construction zone.

The official dates for the National Cherry Blossom Festival are March 20-April 14, 2004.

My husband, Alan, and I braved the city to check it out on March 19th, and it was definitely peak bloom already. Nature was out there showing off, and people were everywhere.

If it was that crowded on a weekday, in the middle of the day, you know the weekends are much worse. I highly recommend not going in the middle of a Saturday or Sunday, even on foot. If you can find a time to go during the week, or early in the morning, I would highly recommend it.

I sprung the idea of going to see the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin on Alan very last minute. He works in the city, so I figured we could metro over.

That was the plan. Unfortunately, I forgot to put my military I.D. card back into my purse, so I could not drive on to the military base where Alan works. Instead, I had to pick him up at the gate. Then we drove down to park in the busiest, closest parking lot.

We did have to wait in a long line of cars. But hey, we got a great space!

Our space was so good, I got this photo from right by our car. We parked near the paddle boats. I think the paddle boats may have been open for business when we left, but no one was riding them. It was too cold for that.

I have lived in the D.C. area off and on over the past fifteen years, and somehow I have never taken a ride on those paddle boats. Add that to my bucket list of things I would like to do.

These trees are so majestic. There are many other places you can find them in the D.C. area. For one, Arlington National Cemetery has many of these, and it is much easier to find a parking space over there.

Last year I got to drive though them, as I drove our family into town for their visit. That was not enough for me this year. I wanted to get down there and walk among them, out in the crisp, cold, happy air.

Alan and I went just the two of us since the kids were in school. Besides, they would only complain if we made them go.

We had the best time just walking around, taking photos, and enjoying being out in the sun.

I’m extra proud of this particular photo of the Martin Luther King Jr. Monument. There is so much to take in here. Primarily you have the statue surrounded by beautiful trees. And didn’t they do an outstanding job on this particular monument?

Then you notice all the people in the picture. The D.C. Tidal Basin feels like a giant Instagram station while the trees are blooming. Everywhere you look everybody, and I do mean every last person, is stopping and taking photos. That’s why it is so hard to get down the sidewalk. There are beaten dirt paths by the sidewalks because of all the stopping.

But in this photo, there is so much more going on. There is a girl with a scooter. Ha! There’s a couple embracing in front of the water feature in the background. Then, of course, there are people posing and walking around.

I feel like that photo shows the whole point of festivals and taking part in exciting tourist attractions.

Getting outside and seeing the sights is so good for us. Look how it bonds people and promotes joy.

While we were by the MLK Jr. Memorial, two young women stopped me to take their picture. Now that’s normal, but bless their hearts, they didn’t even have their cameras with them. They asked if I could use my phone to take a photo and text it to them. Of course, I was happy to do so.

People often ask me to do things like that. I think I am a very non-threatening looking person to ask things. I think that also means I don’t have resting *witch* face, so hey, that’s good.

The funny thing is that I often get asked for directions, and if you know me, then you know that is hilarious. Talk about the blind leading the blind.

This is a good view of how the blooming cherry trees encircle the Tidal Basin, with so many famous Washington D.C. sights in the background.

When you get near the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, on the opposite side of the basin from the paddle boats or the MLKJ Memorial, you begin to see the flooded area. It floods twice a day, though it wasn’t flooded when we walked by. You could still see all the dirt and erosion from where it floods so often.

This Stumpy mascot tree is standing beside the tree the District has nicknamed “Stumpy.” It has come to symbolize the flooded area. The flooding has stunted this tree’s growth enough that it is obvious.

I forgot to take a good photo of this famous little tree, but you can find it here. That link also has the news release about the flooding. The sea wall project will not be finished until 2027.

You can see the park ranger giving a news brief on the plans for the sea wall to correct the flooding problem.

The basin is flooding over the sidewalk and past all of this grass, affecting many of the cherry trees and re-routing foot traffic.

You see a lot of people in suits and ties in D.C. I always wonder if maybe they work for Congress, but I never know. I could walk past a famous political pundit, newsperson, or Congress person, or U.S. Senator, and I’d never know it. D.C. is a city I dearly love, but I cannot keep up with all the politics.

I’ll leave you with this blast from the past. This is Alan and me by the cherry blossoms in 2013. That’s eleven years ago now.

I look extremely younger. I think I stressed out too much during those eleven years.

Going to see the cherry blossoms is always worth doing to me. I just love a day out in Washington, D.C. It is by far my favorite city. The next few years will be marked by construction, as they fix up the sea wall. If you get a chance, go see it this year!

Check out these other Washington D.C. posts:

The Best Things to Do in Washington, D.C.

Touring the National Mall with Little Kids

The post Last Chance to See the Cherry Blossoms in D.C. Before Major Tidal Basin Reconstruction appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

We make this trip down south to see our family every single year. Alan had to switch jobs back in June, so this year we pushed the pilgrimage back to August. I kept thinking by August “things” would be better. But alas, August is here, and things still look like a bowl of mush.

Alan had to get special permission to even take leave and travel so far during all this mess. With permission secured, we packed our bags and hit the highway.

We left town in a downpour comparable to what I would imagine was seen in the days of Noah and his ark.

Cars were pulled over on I-95 to both the left and right sides of the road, as the water was almost impossible to even see through. Giant diesel trucks were everywhere. It was rough, but we trudged forth.

Our faithful canine companion was tucked safely on her little chewed-up dog bed in the van floor between the middle seats. She is a champ of a traveler, though she did take some fascination with a random truck driver at a red light in the D.C. area who she barked at a bit. No idea what her problem with him was. He seemed to get the message and inched forward. Ha!

By the time we got through Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the weather cleared up. Hurray!

We only drove five hours the first day and knocked out the remaining eight on day two. This trip went more quickly than past ones, as we did take fewer stops.

Thankfully, at this point in the pandemic, August 7th, we did not have any trouble finding places to take a bathroom break or get food.

Have you ever suffered an electric shock from a car charger?

Our minivan has a charger in the back row, which the boys like to fight over. They use it to charge their modern day Gameboys. We were in the middle of settling a dispute over who had the right to charge their Nintendo in that space, when Daniel suddenly let out a dramatic “Yow!” He was in deep distress, and all attention turned to his giant blue eyes and upset face.

Apparently, there was a small pencil in the charger, and he reached down to grab it out. He touched the lead and the metal all at once, which gave him a solid shock. He was shook up.

Then all the boys, including Dad, started to tell their shock stories.

One was especially hilarious. Our son was sitting in his sixth grade class, ironically enough, listening to a lesson on electric current and graphite. He thought to himself that his pencil tip was like graphite, so he PURPOSEFULLY stuck his pencil in an electrical outlet! My son let out a yelp and was forced to explain himself to both teacher and class. The way he told it was pretty funny.

This was news to me.

I had never heard this story. Plus, I had no idea that so many of us have suffered shocks! Caleb and I are the only ones in our family who have never been shocked. This is also quite ironic, considering Caleb was the toddler who got caught by all three kinds of mouse traps.

We all had a good laugh over the electrical shock stories. I love how we all feel so close during family vacations. Vacations are an essential part of family life. That opportunity for everyone to step away for their ordinary engagements and have fun together for a while is refreshing. This time builds bonds and heals hurts.

One of the boys has Siri on his device set to “Indian accent,” and we got to listen to him ask it silly questions.

Biggest whiner of the trip: The dog.

Rosie was happy and quiet for most of the five hour trip, but any time Alan got out of the van to pump gas or run into a store, the dog whining began in earnest. It was as though she thought he was never returning. Alan is her master, and she is completely devoted to him.

Now that Alan works from home, Rosie spends all day everyday lying in the floor of the room where he works. Some days Alan goes into the office to work, and Rosie will still spend the day lying in the floor of his room, waiting for him to return.

We ended night one at a Hampton Inn and Suites in southern Virginia.

Hampton Inn’s Covid Changes

Most corona changes are mild: wear a mask in the hallways, smaller numbers of people in the elevator, etc. The only change that annoyed me was breakfast and coffee.

For breakfast, you had to put in an order of what you would like from a menu, by midnight the night before. We only arrived at the hotel at eleven-something, so I felt rushed on that with very little brain power, but we got it done. Plus, you had to sign up for a breakfast pick-up time. I did not like that level of committing to a wake up time after a late night, but it didn’t bother Alan. He always gets up early.

Once you go down to breakfast pick-up, you had to wait in a very long line, which always feels counterproductive to me in the age of rona.

Coffee is no longer self-serve, which makes sense. You had to got to the front desk and tell the clerk how to fix your coffee. I tried to just make coffee in my room, but it was a different system than I am used to. I did not have the patience for learning new things, so downstairs I went for the desk-clerk-served coffee.

The good news is the coffee was delicious, and there was no line for that.

How was there no line for coffee? Everyone else had the energy and functioning to figure out that tiny alien coffee maker in our rooms?

We were back on the road by 9:45 on day two. With four children, that feels like an accomplishment. Yes, I am serious. Some people, (I mean me), have trouble getting up before 7:30 these days…

More on our Bama vacation on our next post!

If you are considering taking a road trip in the age of rona, and have not decided yet, I say GO! Yes, COVID is everywhere, but you can take precautions in one state about as well as another.

Happy summer!

The post Successful Annual Road Trip to See Family During the Rona appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.