The annual blooming of the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. is currently underway. The Washington Post featured this photo of "Stumpy," a hollow remnant that still manages to generate blossoms in the spring.
I was born in Washington, D.C. while my father was stationed there as part of his Navy assignment, and a visit to the cherry blossoms was a standard part of my life, beginning before I was one year old...
... and again several years later at about three years of age -
Tip for DC visitors: The Cherry Blossom festival dates are only determined a few months ahead after some biologist has looked at the weather and can make a decent prediction about when peak bloom is. This can move quite a bit on the calendar based on how mild the transition from winter to spring is.
ReplyDeleteThe best time to visit is when that poor biologist is wrong, and peak bloom happens to be a week or two before or after the festival. That's when you want to come to DC.
Locals avoid two events in DC. Inaugurations and Cherry Blossom festival. Too many tourists.
However, we love it when some wild weather shifts peak bloom away from the festival so we can have peak bloom to ourselves.
Happens ever few years. A year to two before COVID, ago a late cold front had the buds frozen in ice during the festival. It was sooooo cold. Poor festival visitors. But we had the blooms to ourselves with all the tourists gone. Great year!
Kawase Hasui painted the same view, many years before I'm sure
ReplyDeletehttps://honolulumuseum.org/collections/7505/
Happy to see these images of a wonderful childhood! Cheers!
ReplyDelete