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As any of you who know me know, I have no sense of direction. Up and down? I’m OK with those. Right, left, east, west? Not so much. I usually do OK within the park and after having accidentally re-found Cherry Hill on Friday night when it too late/dark to get a good picture, I had a general course planned for Saturday morning. I just didn’t realize how long it was.I entered the park at E. 86th and headed north along the reservoir. The east side of the reservoir had the sakura in peak whereas they are totally gone on the west side. Odd. From the south end of the reservoir I dropped down toward the Delacorte and new-to-me deck over the Turtle Pond via the great lawn and some amazing cherry, plum and magnolia trees. It’s amazing how many more turles you can see when the brush is cut back. I wanted to go up to the top of Belvedere Castle but the crowds were too big so I headed east around the Turtle Pond to the Poland/King Jagiello statue where I just s at and people watched for a bit. It was a gorgeous, warm-for-March spring day but a little too cool in the shade so I kept walking again after too long.
At the top of the hill to the south of King Jagiello I found another wonderful tree where I probably stopped and took photos for 20 minutes. Photos, yes. These were 20 or so of my best from yesterday but I took 248 in a matter of four plus hours. Yep, Shutterbug Cari is alive and well. From there, cut down through the crowds by the Boathouse and Bethesda Terrace to cherry hill. Surprisingly after the blossoms by King Jagiello and the ones I’d seen earlier in the week near the Pilgrim statue, where I returned on my way out of the park, the blossoms on cherry hill weren’t as magical. I still enjoyed the view of the Lake and the people watching.
By this point, my achilles were starting to hurt (fit flops and hills in the park don’t mix) so I decided to head out and make my way to the gym … but then I found the pilgrim blossoms even closer to peak than earlier in the week and an hour was gone to taking pics. Those trees are where the majority of the pics above are from – and they’re what spurred me to figure out how to edit photos on my computer and upgrade flickr so I could post them. WOW. These are by far the best sakura I’ve ever seen outside of Himeji or Hiroshima. The perfect climax to a great day.
I was floored when I tracked my route in MapMyFitness and realized it was more than five miles. Followed that with seven miles at the gym. A productive day in many ways.