For my first recreational trip this year, I went to Washington DC to hopefully photograph the cherry blossoms at peak bloom. Of course, when it comes to Mother Nature, she always has her own ideas, and my trip was about 10 days too late. Still, I stuck to my plan, and met up with a friend who drove up from South Carolina. We spent Friday, April 1 through Sunday April 3 in the area. We packed a lot into those three days, a theme I would continue with my Arizona trip later in April.

The first day, we started with the intention of touring Ford’s Theater. However, we were confronted by a huge crowd of school tours (it was still Spring Break time). So, instead, we checked out St. Patrick’s Cathedral right down the street, a great gothic exterior, and a gorgeous interior. From there, we went to the National Mall, and spent some time at both the World War 2 Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. We had to get to the other end of the Mall so that we could take a tour of the US Capitol Building, which was great, except for the rotunda being covered by scaffolding and tarp. We finished up at Union Station, which is right by the Capitol Building.

Saturday was spent at the Udvar-Hazy Annex to the National Air & Space Museum, which is where the Space Shuttle Discovery is now housed, as well as a lot of other aircraft and spacecraft that can’t fit in the main Air & Space Museum. From there, we drove up to the Baltimore area for dinner with some friends, and then we went back down to the Mall to photograph the Memorials at night. That turned out to be its own adventure, as a vicious storm hit just as we got to the Lincoln Memorial. Luckily, we had shelter inside, and waited out the rain and wind.

Sunday, we drove to the US Marine Corps War Memorial (aka The Iwo Jima Memorial), as I wanted to pay tribute to a friend and Marine who had passed away from cancer on the Friday we arrived. The temperature had dropped into the 30s that day, with winds gusting 20-30 mph, and naturally, I hadn’t packed cold weather gear. We also went to the National Archives that day, after the Marine Corps Memorial, and then we finished the day at the National Zoo. We saw some lions (no tigers, though, they were camera shy), and the pandas, among many others.