Suzie's Visit, Day 2

Lesson learned: good weather + Cherry Blossom Festival Parade + Cherry Blossom Festival = insane crowds in DC!  At least it was a fun day!

The parade was awesome!  I hadn't been before, so I wasn't sure what to expect from the crowds, but the site recommended that we get there an hour early to scope out a good spot.  I was a little skeptical, but went along with that plan anyway.  I'm so glad that we did because the crowd initially wasn't that bad at all, but eventually, all the curb space was taken up.

The parade was fun!  There were a few marching bands (I was surprised how many were from outside the area), several cowboys and cowgirls, floats, character balloons, and clowns (eek...).  There was a huge group of tap dancers (probably 150 people?) that did a dance for probably every 1.5 blocks...it was cool to see them all coordinated.

 

This tri-cycle guy was the coolest...he was riding with 3 wheels on top of each other.  It looked very unsafe, one reason being that he wasn't wearing a helmet.  I appreciated the skills though!

After the 3-hour-ish parade, we went to Potbelly for lunch. Getting there was a little difficult because the streets were blocked off for the Japanese Street Festival.  We were able to find the end of the festival and cross the street.  Potbelly was a little crowded, so we decided to eat our sandwiches and salads outside in the nice weather. 

We wanted to do some paddleboating after lunch, so we started walking towards the Tidal Basin.  It seemed like everyone and their brother was in DC and walking around the cherry blossoms.  This was definitely a good weekend for DC tourism, that's for sure.  Unfortunately, the line for paddleboating was very long, so we ended up sitting by the cherry blossoms and soaked in some sun and people watched. 

It was getting close to dinner time so we decided to Metro to Meg's place, get some popsicles/ice cream along the way, help her re-wrap all of her Easter decorations, order pizza, and chat for a few more hours until we were all yawning at the table.  There were some people outside the Metro station handing out free cat treats and hummus.  I didn't take either one, but my friends did.  The Sabra guy was like "Open your bag and tell me when to say stop!" as he piles in the single serving cups of hummus into Robyn's bag.

Today was a long day (7:45 AM to 10:30 PM) with lots of walking...I'm pooped!