Eastern Seaboard Runaround

Two weeks ago I flew to Richmond, VA to visit the newlyweds.  This was the beginning of my Eastern Seaboard Runaround:  two weeks of traveling south, north, south, north, all over the place!  Claire & Rich: such a fun, happy couple with a beautiful, comfortable home equipped with two sweet kitties.  Theirs is a place I can walk in and feel right at home. 

I arrived late in the evening, so we didn't visit long.  The next morning the two of them were leaving early for work.  I was on my own for the day.  Well, it didn't take too long for me to decide to take a train two hours up to D.C. to see the cherry blossoms. 

 This man had a bucket-full of crappie after the morning's fishing. He said he would be letting them go, but I doubt that: why would you sit on a bucket of crappie all day and then let them go? I was never a fan of maim and release anyway...

Even though it was a week before the Cherry Blossom Festival, thousands of other cherry blossom-lovers must have had the same idea.  I'm not a statistician, but it seemed like half of the people weaving in and around the cherry trees and the Potomac Basin were speaking Japanese.  Maybe they had come over to check up on their gifts to the U.S.A.

I spent the day walking.  Claire had warned me that it would be hot.  Hot in my vocabulary is 75º.  It was H.O.T.  Walk, walk, walk, for hours, looking at sculptures and memorials and people.  I wonder what I look like, people-watching.  In rural Kansas one sees more wildlife than human life.  I can (and did) watch people for hours.

In the late afternoon, I hopped on a train headed south, back to Richmond.  It was a busy evening for the three of us.  At 4:30 am the following day we were headed south again: Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.