The National Park Service officially declared peak bloom for the cherry blossoms yesterday! So of course, we had to visit this morning. We planned on arriving before sunrise but ended up much later due to significant traffic on the way and then failing to find a nearby parking spot. However, the cherry blossoms were beautiful once we finally made it there!
It wasn’t too busy as we walked around the Tidal Basin. Generally visitation is always lower on weekdays, particularly early in the morning! We probably wouldn’t want to visit on a busy weekend afternoon.
The cherry blossoms always vary greatly tree by tree. Some areas were particularly dense with flowers.
There were still plenty of examples of flower buds that haven’t bloomed yet though.
In particular, the pinkest cherry blossoms seemed to have bloomed the least.
The trees that are just starting to bloom have a darker pinkish color before the buds open and the flower pops out.
We’ve noticed this particular cherry blossom tree in the past. It looks to be in a rather poor state but was blooming pretty well this year! It sits all by itself next to the Jefferson Memorial.
The Martin Luther King Memorial is surrounded by cherry blossoms. Most of the trees next to him were definitely at peak bloom!
The MLK and Lincoln Memorials look nice with cherry blossom trees. Unfortunately, there is a huge construction crane in the way!
There always seems to be something under construction in the area.
This particular cherry blossom tree had an interesting twisted trunk. There are a few trees that have this feature but this was the most photogenic of them all with a nice canopy of blossoms.
Many of the cherry trees have blossoms that are growing directly out of the tree’s trunk.
The Washington Monument is one of the most iconic of all the DC monuments and certainly the most visible from a distance. Here, it seems to tower over the cherry trees!
There are just too many beautiful scenes to photograph them all! Here are just a few that we captured.
We arrived fairly early so there were no paddle boats out on the Tidal Basin. This is the first one to go out just as we finished our loop!
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