The Tidal Basin in Full Bloom

I had pretty much given up hope of seeing any Cherry Blossoms this year... there were just too many conflicts, and this one car business was making it difficult to manage necessary tasks and responsibilities, let alone frivolous day trips. So you can imagine my surprise and elation when I got home last night and Jesse informed me that I would indeed be able to go to Washington D.C. today to see those glorious pink blossoms. He's pretty fantastic.

So Oliver and I dropped Jesse off with his carpool buddy Rose (who is kind of a saint), made preparations for our day trip, and headed to Greenbelt to catch a train...er...commuter rail.

I'll have you know that I successfully navigated the Metro and D.C. without any trouble ALL BY MYSELF today.Which may not seem like a lot, but the thought of it gives me great anxiety.  The ticket machines...and the train transfers between lines, and feeling disoriented every time I exit a building in the city... I did it all anyway!

Also, I bought a Smart Trip fare card...so I'm pretty much legit now.

But here's the best part:

Just after Oliver and I had extricated ourselves from the hoard of picture taking people near the entrance to the basin, we plopped down on a shady bit of grass somewhere between Martin Luther King Jr. and Franklin D. Roosevelt to bask in majesty of the Tidal Basin in full bloom.

We munched on cookies, and every once in a while, I managed to snap a photo without 87 thousand people in it. We enjoyed the view of the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial all dressed up in soft pink, and breathed in the scent of cherry blossoms as it danced past our noses on the wind...

...and we got a phone call from our mutual friend Jesse! He informed us that classes had been canceled for the afternoon, and since he was at a metro station in Bethesda ANYWAY, he would be joining our little escapade in no time at all.

So we ate some more cookies, sipped some more water, snapped some more pictures and enjoyed ourselves until Jesse got there and then we carried on.

Jesse totally made me pose for this photo. I felt super awkward, but he was pretty pleased with the outcome. "Just do it" he said. "It'll turn out to be your favorite picture." He said...

It was just another magical day in Washington D.C.