It’s on my bucket list to see the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. I grew up as a military brat and spent four years of my childhood on mainland Japan where cherry blossom trees lined the streets of the base. Seeing the white blossoms every year was such a treat!

I missed seeing the white blossoms this year due to family commitment, but then I saw that there were also pink blossoms! I’d never seen those before. So, I checked the flights and there were plenty of standby seats on a Thursday, so I planned a trip with one of my children. We kept an eye on the weather because if a storm went through DC, it would knock almost all the blossoms off.

The weather ended up being beautiful that week, so we headed to DC on a Thursday morning, got some sandwiches at the airport and took them to go and then headed to the Washington Monument on the metro. We had tried to get tickets online the day before, but they sold out within seconds of their release time. We went to see if they had walk-up tickets left, but they were all gone, too. But, we had a picnic by the monument and did some people watching.

Then, we walked over to the Jefferson Memorial since the pink cherry blossoms were over in that area. We had never been to that monument before either, so it was neat to check it out. We found a small grove of blossoms and took some pictures. They were just so beautiful! We spent a good hour walking around and just admiring them. We also found a huge flower bed full of all different colors of tulips.

We flew back home in the early evening. It was a great day trip that we’re still talking about!