Good Friday in the cherry blossoms

This morning, I packed Veeka into the car and drove to the Tidal Basin, an act of sheer madness as the roads around there were reaching gridlock by the time we got there. Finally found a place to leave the car - miraculously - although we'd no sooner walked away than Veeka began to wail that she was too tired. Little did she know she had an entire mile to go trudging around the pond. Whole buses were disgorging dozens of tourists, so the walk was beyond packed in that a crowd equaling the populations of several states were doing the same thing as we were. Still, the blossoms formed the loveliest delicate pink roof as we made our way around.
Veeka liked the Jefferson Memorial quite a lot, as it turned out and thought the blossoms were pretty and demanded to be carried much of the way. A popsicle mollified her somewhat on what turned out to be a very warm day. The weather could not have been lovelier and the photo was taken from one of the few uncrowded spots.
Next, we ended up at McDonalds, her favorite place, to get her a Happy Meal and then it was off to a local monastery that was also packed to the gills. The place is known for its stations of the cross walk through a very lovely garden so I spent a lot of time explaining to Veeka the concept of piercing someone's hand with a nail. She has done so well so far - Thursday she made it through an entire Maundy Thursday service. She really enjoyed having her feet washed.