This 3-mile sightseeing jaunt was going to be my long run for the week and fortunately we had plenty of stops due to the crowded walkways along the waterfront and so I could take pictures of the flowering trees. The run itself showed me I'm still woefully out of shape as I labored mightily to keep up with my far more fit friend, she of the five half-marathon races run last year, but with the forced stops and slowdowns, it went pretty well despite my poor conditioning.
The day was deceptively cool. Although sunny, it was windy and raw along the wide-open waterway.
There were unusual sights along the way in addition to the bustling crowds, like the artist painting the trees in their bloom. I mentioned to her that she needed to start adding some pink to her canvas to go with the blue of the sky and water, the brown of the tree trunks and limbs and the green of the grass, and she politely smiled at my smart-alecky suggestion, pulled her gloves on ever tighter to ward off the cold and went on with her passion.
This is an example of the splendor she was hoping to capture in her painting when she started adding the pink of the blossoms. It is a sight well worth a visit to the District despite the bother of the crowds, traffic and lack of parking.
Alongside the Tidal Basin is the National Flower Library which reveals its location each spring on an otherwise grassy field by the first sign of the perennial tulips poking up. Just last week there were only a few green shoots poking up, by next week there will be a plethora of different colored flowers in neatly set beds.
Last year's Cherry Blossom run produced one of my favorite animal pictures, a goose sailing along serenely with blown away petals bejeweling its back. Last year the blossoms were more scrawny and blew down much sooner than this year.
Here's another picture from last year's run. Each spring I make an effort to run around the Tidal Basin, with friends preferably, to see these world-renowned blooms at or near their peak.
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