Another good night's sleep, even though I am starting to think about our trip returning home, particularly getting to the Dulles airport. The route is good, but how do we navigate getting to the right terminal? The airport maps seem pretty straightforward.
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| Steps to Azalea Garden |
Today’s agenda is pretty simple-see some gardens, maybe the National Arboretum, and go to the Ford Theater for a production of Shout, Sister, Shout. This is the show we were to see Wednesday night, but got rescheduled for tonight.
We decided to go to the National Arboretum. So at 11am, we leave our room and walk down to K St. There we pick up bus D4 which takes us to the Mt Olivet Cemetery area. This is considered the Trinidad area of DC. We walk about ¾ of a mile alongside the Arboretum until we get its gates on R St.
From my view, parts of this Arboretum looks like a well taken care of natural forest. This is the part which we walk up first. It is on the side of a hill, rising a couple hundred feet up. The sign says this is the Azalea Trail. There are more signs in front of plants for rhododendrons than azaleas. Still in a few places there are blossoms. From the signs, the first director of the national Arboretum was originally the director of a place called Glen Dale where azaleas are propagated. Apparently he went crazy-in a good way- with them and there are over two hundred different varieties of azalea in the Arboretum.
We continue to climb the hill. Many flowers populate our walk. When we reach the top of the hill, there are columns laying on the ground. Also a picnic bench. Sounds like a good thing to do to keep up our energy. Lunch is the normal peanut butter and Nutella. And then we are off.
We are not sure where we are on the property, but are enjoying going down this road.The flowers do liven up a walk. We come to a gardener’s shack and outside are ten rules posted about conduct within the Arboretum. One of them is “do not eat lunch on the grounds”. Oops. Glad we did not know this earlier.
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| Morrison Garden |
We circle back around and come to a walled garden dedicated to Benjamin Y. Morrison's memory. It has had only cursory maintenance. But there is a sense of aesthetics here. We then drop down to a road and cross over a field to some columns we have been observing for a while. There are 22 of these columns laid out. When the Capitol building was expanded, these columns were removed and put into storage. 30 years later they came out and put into the Arboretum. While columns look stately, they seem out of place.
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| Capitol Columns |
We head down to the Visitor Center and use the facilities. And then on to the herb garden. In its present state, just after Winter condition, it doesn't seem very healthy. But maybe in a month or two, it would be something to write home about. There are some healthy bushes, but many of the sign identifiers had no plants beside them. There were a lot of roses.
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| Sherri and Cherry Blossoms |
And now we are on our way back to our rooms, so we can rest for tonight’s performance. I check my phone for the route and I see a call from the 202 Area Code-that’s DC. When I listen to the voicemail, it is Ford’s Theater canceling out tonight’s performance. Unfortunately, this night is probably the last night we have available. I left a message saying, give us a refund on the money.
Flowers and Plants
Azaleas and Rhododendrons
Ever Red Sunset
Cherry Trees
Bonsai Trees
Unknown
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