Family Visit

Blogging has been slow this week because I have family visiting from out of town. Politics aside, Washington D.C. truly is an awesome city, not like any other in the United States. The amazingly ornate and massive buildings, the beautiful and awe-inspiring monuments, and the sense of American pride (which is often hard to find in some places, especially college) always astounds me when I go downtown.

Well, my wife and our guests ventured into the city for the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival. The event marks the generous gift from the mayor of Tokyo, Yukio Ozaki, in 1912 of 3,000 cherry trees. The majority of the trees line what's called the Tidal Basin. Everyone has probably seen this area in movies, as the Jefferson Memorial is situated on its edge. It's a beautiful area and I never get sick of going there.

The city is expecting about 1 million visitors during the two week long festival, but we managed to avoid the heavy crowds thanks to predicted rains (that held off until after we left). Here's a couple photos I took. Still so much to see and do, but that's a good problem to have :-)