APRIL IN DC

DC has a pretty weak Winter, I've discussed this already. DC Summer is infamous for being muggy and unpleasant. It's no Houston, but it's no picnic either. The Fall is pretty good, but as with the Winter, growing up with the New England version makes it pretty hard to get excited about anything else.

Spring, however, well DC wins that one hands down. In terms of the weather, Spring is one of the few times DC is ever truly comfortable without mechanical assistance (the other being Fall). The days are warm and the nights are cool. It is an encouraging time to be outdoors.

The city itself seems designed with this in mind. Certainly, the current City Architect takes full advantage of the strength of a good DC Spring. There are flowers and flowering plants everywhere. Daffodils (my personal favorite), tulips, and pansies (there are plenty more, but that's close to the limit of my ability to identify particular species) are planted almost everywhere people can be convinced not to walk. Those are just the general flower beds. There are entire public gardens devoted to showing off different species of flowers.

Don't like flowers? There are sculpture gardens (at least two that I know of), memorials (of course), bike paths, hiking trails (yes, there is indeed a small forest in the middle of DC, it even has deer), picnic locations, ballparks, volley ball courts, sailing marinas, canoeing/kayak launches (yes, also in the middle of DC), and so on. You name a reason to be outdoors and DC probably has it (well, they do kind of frown on hunting).

Yes, DC shines in Spring.

And to kick it all off, they throw the Cherry Blossom Festival. This year, thanks to the wimpier-than-usual Winter, the festival started in March. My girlfriend and I went last Thursday, the day predicted to be the peak blooming day (although that was coincidence, we had been planning on going that day before we learned about that). On the list of good things I can say about my shift schedule, the top item is definitely the random weekdays off that allow us to go places and do things while everyone else is working (makes shopping easier, too). It made this year's trip to the festival much less crowded than last year's weekend excursion.

DC still has a long way to go before I forgive it for ruining all my snowboarding plans but the Cherry Blossom Festival is a good start.