Suzie and I were taking a weekend trip to Florida to meet up with Mike and Kacey in Orlando with a few stops along the way.  We had both slept poorly and before we had reached DC on our way to Atlanta were both punchy.  The National Cherry Blossom Festival celebrates the blooming of the cherry blossoms given to the US in 1912 and while I had seen these trees before I had never seen them so fully in bloom.

Suzie had taken a bloomed sprig and put it in her hair causing an older women to comment to the effect that doing so would have her brought up on war crimes or some non-sense.

The blossoms were everywhere along the Potomac across the Jefferson Monument and the canopies of the trees laced together to create a white sky with burgundy highlights when walking beneath.  They also absorbed sound quite well and there was a quietude to being there.  We walked from one end of the grove to another and took a few pictures.  It was lovely.

On the way back to the car, we passed a dead body.  That was a first.

The next 11 hours were a blur of music, rain, and fatigue.  We both finally snapped about 15 minutes out from Reuben’s house at the comment “WAFFLE TIME IS PRIVATE TIME” and the final sign of my mental desolation was pulling into the wrong driveway.  We were at Reuben’s house for the second time in the same year and had made the 800 mile trip in a day without dying.  This blessed life.

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