Day 195/365 - April Bower

For this week's self-portrait we have this shot of me under a canopy of pink cherry blossoms in a grove of trees between Capitol Hill and Union Station in Washington, DC. Honestly, I wasn't intentionally trying to look like Eraserhead here.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 178/365 - Cherry Blossom Festival Parade

Today was the parade kicking off the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC. I'd never seen this parade before, so today I forced myself to get out of bed earlier than I wanted to and went to check it out. It was a pretty good parade. It's sort of a smaller scale version of the Thanksgiving Day Parade in NYC. There are marching bands and floats and usually there are balloons as well, but the high winds today grounded the balloons.

And at the end of the parade, instead of Santa in a sleigh, we have the Easter Bunny in a carriage. Apart from the wind the weather was perfect -- sunny and warm. It was a great day to be standing on the corner watching a parade go by.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 174/365 - Cherry Blossom Time in DC

The cherry blossom trees have started to bloom in Washington, DC. The blossoms will only last for about another week, so I decided to make the most of the clear skies and warm weather today and walk home. My path home takes me right along the edge of the Tidal Basin and through the main grove of cherry blossom trees. The trees were a gift from Japan to the United States and, although they don't actually produce any cherries, they do put on a beautiful display each year in early Spring.

If you've never seen the cherry blossoms before they are an amazing sight. I've been here ten years and they still astound me. The day I get so jaded that they stop astounding me is the day I need to turn my eyes back in and let them give them to someone else who will make better use of them. Most of the cherry blossoms are a brilliant white, but some are a light pink. They make the trees look like they're full of snow or cotton candy and then when the wind blows some of the petals pull loose and tumble and flutter along on the breeze like snowflakes made of satin.

As someone I know said: "thanks, Japan, for the trees."

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)