BLOSSOMS!

Cherry blossoms in full bloom with the Jefferson Memorial in the background.
Spring has arrived in Washington!
(P.S. This photo is not an overlay. This is pure, dumb luck!)

I looked out my window yesterday evening and noticed we were about to have a gorgeous sunset. I literally ran to my room, grabbed my camera, tripod, keys, and a jacket and ran out the door. Jumped in my car and drove from upper NW to the Tidal Basin via Beach Drive and Rock Creek Parkway in about 10 minutes. (No mean feat, let me tell you! It usually takes 20.)

These are just four of the 114 pictures I took of the cherry blossoms, Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument, Roosevelt Memorial, and a few sunset shots. Over the next few days, I'll post a few more pictures. I'm also going back tomorrow morning before sunrise to set up and take pictures of the blossoms and the Jefferson Memorial in the early morning light.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival signals the commencement of spring in Washington, D.C., as well as the arrival of trains, planes, automobiles, and busloads of tourists and high school touring groups from all over the United States and the world. More than a million people will pour into the city over the next two weeks to enjoy the blossoms and the festival.

In 1912, the Mayor of Tokyo, Yukio Ozaki, presented 3,000 cherry trees as a gift to the peoples of the United States in an effort to strengthen relations between our two countries. (In 1915, the United States reciprocated and presented Japan with flowering dogwood trees.) The cherry trees where planted around the Tidal Basin and the first festival was held in 1935. All festivities were suspended in the 1940s while the U.S. and Japan were at war with each other.

In 1947, the D.C. Board of Trade and D.C. Commissioners resumed the festival as an act of reconciliation and it has continued to this day. Events include a parade, martial arts demonstrations, and the crowning of a Cherry Blossom Princess, among other activities. In 1965, First Lady Lady Bird Johnson accepted an additional 3,800 trees from the Japanese.

Today, these trees have realized a full cycle of life when, in 1981, Japanese horticulturists took cuttings to replace trees destroyed in flooding in Japan. In 1999, a new generation of cuttings was planted from a tree in Japan reputed to be 1,500 years old!

To see larger versions of the thumbnails, click on them. And come back next week. There will be more! Photo thumbnail descriptions from top to bottom: Cherry trees in full bloom at the mouth of the Tidal Basin; pink clouds to match the pink blossoms: the Washington Monument from across the Tidal Basin; blossoms, tourists, and the Jefferson Memorial: our most popular and picturesque time of year!

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 3/08