Bluebells on the Potomac

I found a really nice trail this weekend in Riverbend Park.  Up until now I've been doing the loop found on HikingUpward.com, but this weekend I decided to take the Potomac Heritage Trail by the river North of the park.  I'm not quite sure how far it goes, but I probably went about 2 miles up river.  I usually like to go to Riverbend Park to see the Bluebells this time of year, but this trail lets me see the flowers and gets me away from the crowds to allow me to let Millie off-leash quite a bit.  Millie also loves jumping into the river in couple of the spots with easy access (but sheltered enough to not have much of a current).  Further up the trail there is a little bit of an elevation gain, and I went as far as the second picnic table.  According to this map, it looks like the trail between Riverbend Park and Algonkian Park is about eight miles.  I should try it from the other end sometime.  The one in Loudoun is probably nice too.

Btw, I'm not sure when they started this, but the park was charging $5 for parking at the visitors center on Saturday.  Apparently twice a year, they charge entry for special events.  Saturday was Bluebells on the Bend festival.  I ended up parking at the Nature Center to avoid the fee, but went down to the main visitors center to check out the festival.  It was a pretty small affair with a burger stand, kettle corn stand, puppet show for kids, a music stage, and reptile display.

Cherry Blossoms 2013

One of the few trees in bloom on April 6, 2013

Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons in Virginia, and I especially look forward to the cherry blossoms.  It's not always easy to catch them at full peak though.  If they peak mid-week, the flowers may blow off from rain or wind by the weekend.  On couple of occasions I have headed out mid week to catch them, but I think my new job will make that difficult since there's not a lot of flexibility in my work schedule.  The bloom watch prediction had April 6-8th as peak bloom dates as of yesterday, so I got up early (not my idea) to go check them out while I can.

It's been a while since I drove into D.C., and if driving and parking there wasn't bad enough already, I think it's even worse now.  I missed the turn off onto Independence coming off of I-66 which took me across the Memorial Bridge back to Arlington.  Then coming back, I got bad directions from my friend and that took us way more North than we wanted to be.  After navigating ridiculous one way streets, we finally found ourselves near the Tidal Basin only to find no parking.  They've closed off one parking lot for stands (they could've put those elsewhere), and a lot of the street parking on Ohio Drive was taken.  We then went on Independence thinking we'll park by the Smithsonian Institution and walk, but all of the parking there are now metered on Saturdays with a 2 hour limit!  We eventually found 3 hour parking on Madison Drive.  We could have also parked on Constitution near the WWII Memorial.  When I was here two years ago, there was no limit to how long you could park on these streets on the weekends.  Now this is going to make it tough if you want to make a day of in downtown D.C.

Not much flowers yet

Well, with the parking fiasco behind us, we did a loop around the mall and tidal basin.  Despite bloom watch predictions of today possibly being peak, there were hardly any trees in bloom.  Most trees, in general, were quite bear.  The cherry blossom trees started to bud, but were far from peak bloom.  There were about three trees around the Tidal Basin that were in bloom so a lot of people were gathered around them taking photos.

Despite the lack of cherry blossoms, it was a nice day for a walk around since it was sunny.  It was cold though, probably in the 30's this morning, and I kept thinking that it isn't any warmer here than it was in Alaska.  I also brought Millie with me and learned how awful she was at leash walking.  She criss-crosses back and forth in front of me and my friend, goes in circles around me, and pulls a lot.  In Alaska I walked her off-leash most of the time.  Before we got there my friend and I imaged her knocking over tripods just before she plunges into the Tidal Basin, and reality wasn't too far from it.  Next time I bring her to D.C., I'll have to remember to bring the Gentle-Leader.