For an early celebration of our 25th anniversary, my wife and I flew to Washington, D.C., last week to start our East Coast tour. We arrived at the perfect time to see the peak of the D.C. cherry blossom bloom. It was incredible, but to be honest, I was a little underwhelmed. I had a picture in my mind of more. Don’t get me wrong, it was impressive, for sure, but for me, it didn’t live up to the hype. After all, I’ve seen the aspens change in the fall in the Snowy Range. THAT is impressive. The aspens are several orders of magnitude bigger than the cherry blossoms in the nation’s capital, and out here, there’s the added benefit that they don’t come with a gazillion people. I’ve never seen so many people in one place in my life. The cherry blossoms synched up with the Kite Festival, so there were people on every square foot of the National Mall – some gawking at trees, others flying kites, and everyone trying to avoid being clotheslined by kite strings.
We took trains from D.C. to Philadelphia, then to New York, and finally to Boston. We spent most of our time outside, walking from one historic site to another, and Boston was great for that. The Freedom Trail is a must-see if you haven’t been there. It’s a two-and-a-half mile stroll chock-full of historic landmarks, including Paul Revere’s house. We went even further and followed Paul’s ride to Lexington, then to Concord, and that was a lot less populated, but still not the kind of getting away from it all I can get in the Wind Rivers or the Bridger-Teton Forest. I don’t know how those folks out there keep from going crazy surrounded by all those people.
But I go to those places so I can see cool stuff and also to remember why I love it here in Wyoming. Some of it is what we have, but a big part of it is what we don’t.
Be the first to comment