Wednesday, April 05, 2006
National Arboretum 04-02-06
Click HERE for Album.
On Sunday I went to the National Arboretum (see also: Friends of the National Arboretum) in Washington D.C. This place actually has a fairly decent website for it. The main improvement I would make to it is a map of the trails. There is a map, but each area of interest is indicated by a symbol and description page. This is good, but there should also be a trail map, probably a separate map. It was a nice warm day with a bit of a breeze. Quite comfortable.
Early spring is one of my favorite times of the year. The budding leaves and the explosion of color in the flowers give me a feeling of hope and optimism. So the logical place for me to go on this bright sunny day was the National Arboretum (aerial photo). I went hoping to see some Cherry Blossoms and boy, did I ever. The Cherry Blossom trees were absolutely thick with flowers and it looks like pink snow to me. On the grounds near the visitor center there is a very large one and you can sit on a bench under the canopy.
The visitor center is definitely the place to start. It has a bit of a moat around it with some fish in it. It seemed to be a hit with the kids. The center itself has some flowers and flowering trees around it. Being early in the year not all of the flowers have come out to play yet. I am sure this place will be even more interesting in the near future. Not far from the visitor center is the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum which is very fascinating and is not to be missed. I did not see the entire Arboretum, in fact, I saw very little of the property and this is still the album with the largest number of images to date. I got there around 1pm thinking it was about noon since I did not know it was daylight savings time. I still managed to spend about 4 hours and 20 minutes here. With that in mind, if you plan to see everything I would suggest two 8 hour days – at least.
There are plenty of roads from one parking lot to the next, but most of them are rather small and even though it is not permitted to do so in most places, people also parked on the sides of the roads. These roads are too narrow for this kind of behavior, especially considering that the roads are two way and also expected to be used by bikes and pedestrians. Please, people, don’t park on these narrow roads if you go there. Park in one of the lots and walk. Your experience will improve drastically this way. That being said, part of the fault is that of the Arboretum. Some of the lots are absolutely tiny and if people are going to see some of the things there are to see, there’s no choice. There is a very large parking lot near the New York Avenue entrance, but it does not appear to be anything and I did not notice any trailheads there (although that does not mean there isn’t one). What I would suggest to the Arboretum is to first make the roads ONE WAY and make parking spaces along some of the wider and straighter stretches and to also have shuttles going from the large parking lot to the various points of interest in the Arboretum. While they have a tram, it is seasonal and is not intended to serve this function. They provide a tour with no stops for the passengers to get off and look. The good news is that it can accommodate two wheelchairs. Speaking of which, they made this place about as wheelchair friendly as they could, but there are some places where a wheelchair would not fare too well.
There is a variety of different kinds of scenery here as well as different and pleasant smells. It is a very pleasant place to be. The signage is good, although not consistent. I think this is a result of different organizations working on different areas and various work being done in different eras. There is even once place in Fern Valley where the signs encourage you to rub the leaves and smell them. Very interesting! One great thing about this place is that even though there were a good number of people there, there were plenty of places where I did not see anyone else. I suspect this will change when things warm up some more and more variety of flowers bloom. I will definitely be returning here in order to see (and photograph) more of the park.
On Sunday I went to the National Arboretum (see also: Friends of the National Arboretum) in Washington D.C. This place actually has a fairly decent website for it. The main improvement I would make to it is a map of the trails. There is a map, but each area of interest is indicated by a symbol and description page. This is good, but there should also be a trail map, probably a separate map. It was a nice warm day with a bit of a breeze. Quite comfortable.
Early spring is one of my favorite times of the year. The budding leaves and the explosion of color in the flowers give me a feeling of hope and optimism. So the logical place for me to go on this bright sunny day was the National Arboretum (aerial photo). I went hoping to see some Cherry Blossoms and boy, did I ever. The Cherry Blossom trees were absolutely thick with flowers and it looks like pink snow to me. On the grounds near the visitor center there is a very large one and you can sit on a bench under the canopy.
The visitor center is definitely the place to start. It has a bit of a moat around it with some fish in it. It seemed to be a hit with the kids. The center itself has some flowers and flowering trees around it. Being early in the year not all of the flowers have come out to play yet. I am sure this place will be even more interesting in the near future. Not far from the visitor center is the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum which is very fascinating and is not to be missed. I did not see the entire Arboretum, in fact, I saw very little of the property and this is still the album with the largest number of images to date. I got there around 1pm thinking it was about noon since I did not know it was daylight savings time. I still managed to spend about 4 hours and 20 minutes here. With that in mind, if you plan to see everything I would suggest two 8 hour days – at least.
There are plenty of roads from one parking lot to the next, but most of them are rather small and even though it is not permitted to do so in most places, people also parked on the sides of the roads. These roads are too narrow for this kind of behavior, especially considering that the roads are two way and also expected to be used by bikes and pedestrians. Please, people, don’t park on these narrow roads if you go there. Park in one of the lots and walk. Your experience will improve drastically this way. That being said, part of the fault is that of the Arboretum. Some of the lots are absolutely tiny and if people are going to see some of the things there are to see, there’s no choice. There is a very large parking lot near the New York Avenue entrance, but it does not appear to be anything and I did not notice any trailheads there (although that does not mean there isn’t one). What I would suggest to the Arboretum is to first make the roads ONE WAY and make parking spaces along some of the wider and straighter stretches and to also have shuttles going from the large parking lot to the various points of interest in the Arboretum. While they have a tram, it is seasonal and is not intended to serve this function. They provide a tour with no stops for the passengers to get off and look. The good news is that it can accommodate two wheelchairs. Speaking of which, they made this place about as wheelchair friendly as they could, but there are some places where a wheelchair would not fare too well.
There is a variety of different kinds of scenery here as well as different and pleasant smells. It is a very pleasant place to be. The signage is good, although not consistent. I think this is a result of different organizations working on different areas and various work being done in different eras. There is even once place in Fern Valley where the signs encourage you to rub the leaves and smell them. Very interesting! One great thing about this place is that even though there were a good number of people there, there were plenty of places where I did not see anyone else. I suspect this will change when things warm up some more and more variety of flowers bloom. I will definitely be returning here in order to see (and photograph) more of the park.
