John Reiss and his father interrupted a vacation spent watching NASCAR races in Tennessee and West Virginia to stop yesterday in Washington, where they traipsed around the Tidal Basin looking at cherry trees.
Gazing at buds creeping to life on an endless jangle of branches, they pronounced themselves fully and thoroughly satisfied. "Beautiful," said John Reiss III, 37, of Folsom, Calif., his burly torso ensconced in a T-shirt that read "Big Dog Attitude."
But no one, they insisted, should think they were going soft. Told they were three days too early for what is expected to be the peak bloom, Reiss's father, John Jr., 73 -- in a NASCAR hat and matching T-shirt -- mulled the possibility of parking their RV for the weekend. The mulling didn't last long.
"We're not missing the next race," the father said.
Nearly two weeks after the calendar declared the demise of winter, spring burst to life, a welcome salve for those weary of what seemed like a season-and-a-half of nuisance snowfall and pounding rain, gray days and bone-chilling nights. Outside office buildings and in parks and at sidewalk cafes, it was a day to linger, sip wine, eat ice cream and enjoy the world passing by.
David Donaldson, 45, a clerk at the downtown YMCA, devoted his lunch hour to Farragut Square, where he engaged in his favorite pastime: people watching. A man sat on a bench a few yards away, talking to a woman.
"See the way he's using his hands," said Donaldson, his eyes narrowing. "That's no good. People don't like that. It's not classy. You can learn a lot being out here."
A young woman passed by, and he smiled.
"Watching pretty young ladies," he said. "That's what I like to do."
Throughout the day, tourists swept across the Mall, taking in picture-perfect views of the Capitol and the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.
Outside the White House, just after 1 p.m., a crowd saw the presidential helicopter land on the South Lawn and lift off a few minutes later.
A steady stream of visitors beat a path to the Tidal Basin and its cherry blossoms, which are expected to peak in time for Saturday's annual parade.
Mung San Lim, 41, a training consultant visiting from Malaysia, parked herself beneath one of the few trees flourishing with color and aimed her camera.
After fighting off rain during stops in Boston and New York, she said it hardly mattered that she was too early for the peak. She was happy just to feel the sun's warmth.
