Blake and I talked about taking the kids to Washington DC for the Cherry Blossom Festival. Neither of us have ever been before but we have seen pictures and they are incredible. We checked the National Park Services website and it said for today the trees were at peak bloom………………….. We were excited that we picked a good day to go and got and the car and headed the 3 hours towards DC. Like clockwork Interstate 95 was backed up once we got to Fredericksburg but we eventually made it. We used the Parking Panda app to find cheaper parking.
We stopped to take some pictures of the United States Capital and National Monument then grabbed a bite to eat from a few of the many food trucks that lined the street.
Food Trucks
The kids were in amazement as this was their first time to ever visit Washington DC. Once we finished eating we began to head towards the Tidal Basin area where the festival was taking place. We received a festival brochure and very confused upon arrival to the Tidal Basin. The website for the festival was completely opposite of what was advertised and the Cherry Blossoms were in fact NOT in full bloom, they were not in any form of bloom. They were all dead. Well all but 1 small part of one tree.
Disappointed we were, especially since we drove over 3 hours to get here but it was a great laugh none the less and we decided to show the kids some of the monuments around DC. We did not have a lot of time to explore DC today as we had to be back to Williamsburg by 6pm.
While walking back towards the monuments, we did come across a large tulip field and took some pictures of the kids. At least we found some flowers.
Our first stop was the WWII Memorial. We told the kids a little about the history and they found the state of Virginia.
This is also the part of the trip that Austin decided he wanted to pose for pictures in front of the monuments in a different way.
Yes Austin has 0 recollection of the monuments we saw today. He decided to take a snooze.
When visiting the Vietnam Memorial I told the kids (all but Austin) a little about the history of Vietnam and that their Grandpa (my dad) fought in this War.
We did get to see Marine One while we had our visit. The kids and us all thought it was really neat to see.
All and all a quick and semi successful trip to Washington DC. Not successful at all in seeing the Cherry Blossom Festival.
Nic of Time - Travel 