Cherry blossom daydreams

Some friends want to plan a spring roadtrip to the nation's capital and asked if we would be interested. I immediately jumped on the trip bandwagon. I'm not sure if it's going to pan out, and some of it depends on the timelines involved, but I like the idea of thinking about and planning it, at any rate. I'd really love to see a D.C. trip happen. I have already compiled a list of things I'd like to see and do, ideally: The Smithsonian Information Center ("The Castle"), The main Smithsonian museums - Natural History, Air and Space, Museum of American History - as well as the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Geographic Museum (that's the wildcard that I can live without, however). And, of course, the National Mall and the monuments. The neighbors think they may be able to arrange tours, either of the Pentagon or the White House (or both...). It's going to be a short trip of five days (two days of travel up and back, leaving three full days crammed with activity to actually explore and sightsee), so we probably won't get to do everything we're thinking we may want to this time around. One thing I'd like to take a pass on is the National Zoo...we'll go along if everyone else wants to go, but I've been once (granted, it was many, many years ago), and it just doesn't hold the appeal it once did. Of course, planning this trip means that we more than likely wouldn't get to take a summer trip, unless we planned it in August just before school starts back up. But I have a week long work-related conference tentative for mid-August, so the chances of a late summer trip are looking unlikely. Our January trip may instead actually happen durig the week right after Christmas - we're looking at the options, there. So many things are on hold or up in the air right now, vacations are never really guaranteed, anyway. We'll see how it all works itself out...