I spent the day exploring DC! Cherry blossoms are fickle and I seem to never have good timing with them. BUT I got super lucky this year and happened to be in DC just before their peak bloom (and just before a huge storm destroyed them all! They’re such delicate flowers that they just don’t last long, especially in this brutal spring that we had on the East coast this year!
The weather was kind of cruddy… okay, super cruddy. It was super cold, terribly windy and raining on and off. You’ll even see some of the pedals blowing in the wind in a few of the images. It made it pretty tough to grab the macro (super close up) shots of the blossoms with them blowing in the wind, but I managed to snag a couple!
One super amazing thing about DC is most of the museums are free, so I had a nice warm place to duck into when the rain picked up. I even took the opportunity to explore the National Botanical Garden, something I probably never would have done if it weren’t for the rain forcing me to go inside!
After popping up from the Metro along the National Mall and snapping a few shots of the gorgeous blossoms I was ready to move on. There were only a few trees blooming at this point and I was determined to hunt for more! I walked up towards Capitol Hill to see if there were any blossoms near the Capitol building. I found some beautiful Magnolia trees (they were GIANT by the way!) and snapped some gorgeous shots of them surrounding the dome.
At this point the storm was really rolling in and rain was coming down pretty hard, so I needed to find some cover for myself and my camera. During previous visits to the Capitol I had noticed the National Botanic Garden, but never thought to go inside – finally I had a good reason to go! Bonus – it’s free (but you should totally drop some dollars in the donation bins at all of the museum to help keep them running and help keep them free for everyone!)
This building is full of gorgeous plants and flowers from all over the world. They have rooms dedicated to specific types of plants including cacti and succulents, orchids and other rainforest plants, and so much more.
When the rain had mostly cleared up, I headed back up the mall because I knewI wanted to check out the Jefferson. But first I made al little stop in the gardens around the Smithsonian Castle. More stunning Magnolias covered the lawns here and from the right angles I was able to frame up the Washigtnon Monument!
From there I continued on towards the Jefferson by first stopping at the Washington Monument. TONS of beautiful blossoms here guys, but unfortunately most of them were super close to the toilets lol. Some sneaky camera moves mean you can’t even tell in the photos! Win!
I walked town along the river and snapped just a couple shots of the Jefferson from across the water. I didn’t actually go up to the Jefferson because 1) It was getting increasingly gross out 2) It would have put me in the opposite direction of my closest Metro stop 3) There weren’t many impressive blossoms down along the water.
I had very few flowers to work with over here, but made the best of it!
