Friday, April 9, 2010

cherry blossoms.

Well Saturday brought a trip to DC. I'll have to break the day up into a few posts I think bc we did a lot and a lot happened....ie) got lost going into DC, got lost coming out of DC....ahem....

So we left about 9am bound for a parking garage in DC where Nathan's sister Naomi was going to meet us. She lives just a couple blocks from the garage and knows her way around so we needed her for the day to be our guide!! Well, the fun started when I looked at my directions and told nathan to turn right...only to find out that the road we needed to turn on was a one way and all I saw was a bunch of cars facing us....AHHH....not good! I called Naomi in a hurry and she said turn left but the prob was we were in the right lane in 3 lanes of traffic! So we did an illegal turn, all while trying to explain to my dad who's behind us what he needs to do to follow us. We got seperated and had no idea where we were going so we pulled over where we were and Dad pulled over where he was and we just waited for Naomi to come save us!

She found us, jumped in our car, and lead us to the garage. Once we were parked, she ran off to find my dad and lead him there as well. Yay! We were all together again!!..and parked, even better! From there we walked to the metro and took the subway to the heart of the DC mall. Taking the metro was an adventure itself. Naomi said to walk to the front bc there's not as many people on the ends. Well the first train pulled up and it was PACKED, and I mean PACKED. There was hardly enough room for one person to squeeze on, much less 5 adults and 4 kids with a double stroller! So we decided to wait for the next one and hope it was a little more cleared out. Thankfully it was! But when it was time to get off, the doors didn't open for a few minutes and it wasn't until we got off that we realized why. One of the main escalators was broken! Crowds and crowds of people all funnel through one set of escalators to get up to ground level. I was super glad to come to the surface....tons of people + underground + crammed spaces = enough to make me clausterphobic!

We talked about what we wanted to see during the day and decided to start off with the cherry blossoms. It was a beautiful sight but the chaos of the crowds, limited walking space with a double stroller plus keeping track of a 3 and 5 yr old were about enough to keep us away. Nathan and I are not ones who like big cities...at all. We hate crowds. So going to see the cherry blossoms in bloom in the capitol of the United States probably wasn't the best idea we've ever had.

Gorgeous view.....


People everywhere!



But now we can say we've 'been there, done that' and from now on we'll just enjoy the cherry trees we see in peoples' yards around here :)

1 comment:

Sara said...

That's amazing, Dawn! I'm jealous that you got to see them. Although, I'm making a mental note to go on a weekday if we every make that trip of a lifetime. The crowds look horrendous! Maybe Monday or Tuesday would be a wee bit better. But very cool. I can't wait to read about the rest of your day in DC!