Long Walks On Leafy Streets

3/18/2014 First Street NW, Washington, DC
Our never-ending winter continues. Spring is supposed to start this Thursday but it feels more like January. Yesterday it snowed again, with a good five or six inches blanketing the area. Schools and offices were closed. This must be the fourth or fifth day we must have lost to snow this semester. It is going to be a little difficult to cover the syllabus in my classes.
As I walked to the bus stop this afternoon I passed by the Takoma recreation center near Van Buren and Fifth Streets. For a moment I was captivated by the thick layer of snow stretched across the grassy area in the front of the recreation center. It has been like that wherever I went yesterday and today. This morning I ran my usual route and wherever there were woods the snow created a magical scene. Blobs of white covered shrubs like a cap, sometimes drooping over the edges like ice cream over a cup. Evergreen trees such as pines and junipers looked especially beautiful with thick patches of snow all over their branches.
Yet over the weekend it did feel like spring has finally arrived. The temperatures rose to the upper fifties and sixties. Nicole and I went on a hike in the National Arboretum in Northeast Washington. This is in a lesser-known corner of the city near the busy area where New York Ave merges into the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. For most people the arboretum is just a little area of parkland bordered by a wall with unostentatious signs that they whizz past as they drive out of the city. But it is a true gem and if you are ever in Washington you must visit it.
Its 412 acres of lush parkland with trees and vegetation from various parts of the world is administered by the Department of Agriculture. On one side it is bordered by the Anacostia River where if you look across the river you will see the Kenilworth aquatic gardens which is another hidden gem. On another side it sits across Mt. Olivet cemetery and from the hills on this side we had great views of the Capitol and the Washington monument. In the middle of it they have placed several columns from the capitol building that were removed when it was renovated in the forties. It looks like a little Greek ruin in the middle of the meadows.
18 other nature lovers joined us and all had a great time. It was a picture perfect day for walking. We saw little leaflets and florets of snowdrops, daffodils and crocuses popping up and also visited the Gotelli conifer collection. You can see pictures of the walk at the website of the nature lovers meetup or on my Flickr page. You can reach either by clicking on the little photo at the top of this page and then clicking on “Nature Lovers Meetup” or “Pictures.”
After the walk we all sat down for lunch and had a great conversation. One woman who had just recently arrived from the U.K told us about the hundreds of miles of walking trails all around the U.K. Apparently hiking and walking are extremely popular there, perhaps all over Europe, and people walk a lot. Once in a while you get a great group together like this where everyone appreciates nature and has a good time and feel very satisfied with what you are doing with your life.

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