A BUST!!

Someone lied.  No, the cherry blossoms were not in bloom...at least nothing remotely close to the promise.  If you tried really, really hard, you could find a tree or two that was maybe 70 or 80% open blooms, but there were damn few of them.  And they were all surrounded by photographers who, like us, came to the tidal basin to see and take pictures of the trees.  I assume a 'colder than predicted' night and a 'slower than predicted' warmup was to blame.  But ...no matter.

No blooms to gawk over, therefore we had to find other things to do. 
-Since we were already downtown, might as well watch some of the 20,000 runners in the Cherry Blossom 10K run. 

These Magnolia trees looked great!

- a trip see a beautiful garden just off the mall in a Smithsonian property.  
- a visit to the Hirshhorn Museum featuring modern art.
- lunch in the American Indian Museum cafeteria...if you have never been, it is worth the trip...not cheap, but really good, unusual dishes.
- a side trip to Ikea.






This only gives me another excuse to get to DC to see them fully in bloom.  When should I go?  Or should I just skip this year for the pictures?