A Capitol Time

Chris and Isaac were like whatever, we have a soccer ball to kick around. It was super bright and extremely windy, and Eloise screamed and screamed in the stroller so I had her in the snuggly pack, where she fell asleep. She and I left the boys to their game and went in search of one of the three trees we saw with a branch of cherry blossoms. Beneath this tree, we took about 500 pictures of wind-whipped flowers by the Washington Monument. Nooooow does it look like it’s awesome? How about now? I couldn’t see anything—my eyes were streaming from the wind. 

Finally I looked up and saw a line of Japanese tourists queued up behind us, waiting to use our tree. Finally, something about this trip that falls into the expected! I was about to offer to take a photo for the trio behind me but—silly me!—they had a selfie stick. I saw a lot of those. 

The most unexpected part of our trip? Hearing, “hello, friend!” as we passed the White House. We ran into Mary and Mason. What are the odds? They were having a lovely time. I was being a grouch. Mary pointed out a bunch of magnolias blooming gloriously. It fell on deaf ears. Cherry blossoms or bust, says I! 

Back on the road headed home, we started seeing cherry blossoms in full bloom as soon as we got near Richmond, just 90 minutes south. It’s all so miserably unfair (quote from animated Robin Hood). In fact, the prettiest blossom photos I took all weekend were at a bloomin’ Chick-fil-A. Sigh. 

But it turns out it could have been worse! We could have been there this weekend when that guy killed himself outside the Capitol. Yikes!