It’s officially the best time to enjoy spring in Washington, D.C. The National Park Service announced the cherry blossom trees in D.C. hit peak bloom on Thursday (April 5th), and the best time for viewing will continue for up to seven days. Peak bloom is defined as the day when 70% of the Yoshino variety blossoms are open on the cherry trees surrounding the Tidal Basin.
The pink blossoms of the Kwanzan trees are often found in the East Potomac Park area, while the white blossoms of the Yoshino are found closer to the northern part of the Tidal Basin near the Washington Monument.
Dave and I went to see the cherry trees at the Tidal Basin right after work. This year, the cherry blossoms peaked late, pushed back several weeks by the cold weather that seems to hover over DC and showing no signs of letting go. Anyways, the Friday night weather was beautiful and we used this opportunity to enjoy it to the fullest. 🙂
Below are mostly the pictures of the blooming Tidal Basin as we were walking around it. We saw these beautiful trees in full bloom again and it never disappointed us. Crowds were pretty heavy, but people were all very considerate to other people trying to take photos.
Washington Monument.
More cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin in the video below.
While walking around Tidal Basin, we reached the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. The centerpiece for the memorial is based on a line from King’s “I Have A Dream” speech: “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” A 30 feet (9.1 m)-high relief of King named the Stone of Hope stands past two other pieces of granite that symbolize the “mountain of despair.”
Visitors figuratively “pass through” the Mountain of Despair on the way to the Stone of Hope, symbolically “moving through the struggle as Dr. King did during his life.” (from Wikipedia).
Just beautiful!
Thomas Jefferson Memorial surrounded by blooming cherry trees.
We decided to walk to Waterfront metro station, because from our experience the closest Smithsonian metro gets very crowded at this time. And we would not even consider driving in due to heavy traffic and many, many tour buses in the area. The traffic was barely moving when we arrived at the Tidal Basin and it was worse when we left.
It was nice to walk through Southwest Waterfront. We used to live in this area about 9 years ago. I couldn’t believe how much this part of the city has improved since then! I couldn’t even recognize this place. It was also very crowded, but besides the fact that DC is almost always packed with tourists, Friday nights are pretty crowded everywhere in DC.
These people were relaxing near the fire pit. It looked really cozy.
We skipped all this fun in DC and went to our neighborhood UNO Pizzeria & Grill restaurant for deep dish pizza. After all, it was National Deep Dish Pizza Day! We, definitely, enjoyed our Friday night out. 🙂
Here is a short video of our Friday night adventure, that I put together from the iPhone live pictures.