After being
cooped up for months, we’re unsurprisingly anxious to get outdoors at the first
sign of warm, welcoming weather. Calder is pretty much off oxygen when he is
awake and we are trialing him off it when he naps and sleeps the night. The
process has been gradual so I could not even put my finger anymore on the real
tipping point. But having him off it so much makes it so much easier to explore
the great outdoors. We are getting out pretty frequently for walks around our
neighborhood. I could take a walk every day here and ogle the architecture of
the row houses, discover another park, peak into a new restaurant.
Anyone who
has been to see the cherry blossoms in DC knows that during the small window in
which they bloom, the whole city comes out to the see them. You have to be
savvy if you want to avoid the crowds and even then, good luck! Because the blooms are only so predictable,
and can disappear with the first good rain, the smart sightseer makes time the
day or day after they hit peak (and maybe even right before!) Most years, we
head straight to the Jefferson Memorial to see the tree-lined Tidal Basin. Last
year we woke up at sunrise, picked up some breakfast from our neighborhood
bakery and hopped in the car – still, we had to wait for a parking spot (an
improvement over not finding one at all) and even ran into someone we knew at
that early hour.
We opted to
go this past Friday this year, right as the blossoms were peaking, which
fortunately coincided with me still on maternity leave and Kraemer on one of
his days off. But instead of starting with the Tidal Basin, we opted to stray a
little off the beaten bath southeast of the memorial. Mid-day, and we
practically had the space to ourselves. It was a perfect afternoon. Cornflower
blue skies, wispy clouds, a gentle wind, people I love and fluffy white cherry
blossoms raining down from the boughs of the trees as we lay in the grass. One
of those days you want to freeze time.
We had SO
much fun being out and about that we tried again today. We waited until early
evening, before the sunset but hopefully after the crowds, this time back to
the popular spot between the Tidal Basin and the Washington Monument. We were
kidding ourselves if we thought we’d miss the masses – throngs of people still
streamed alongside the water. Still in isolation, we opted to admire the lake
from afar. While the blossoms weren’t as captivating as they’d been on Friday,
I took my pleasure today in overhearing the giggling and seeing the smiles
people wore in reaction to Calder’s antics. We've always said he’s a funny guy!
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