Delicate unopened blossoms on a cherry tree at the Tidal Basin. The National Cherry Blossom Festival officially started yesterday, but the trees are still a few days away from peak bloom. I took the above picture earlier today, along with the smaller one at right showing one of the blossoms fully opened (click to enlarge). It's too bad the peak blooming isn't going to be on a weekend, but I'm thinking that next Saturday might actually not be too bad to see the blossoms because most of them still have quite a way to go before they're fully open. But who knows? Maybe once they get to this point they go the rest of the way pretty fast.

I'll be heading back down once or twice more this week to try to capture the full monty and will post more if I do. For now, I've posted a few more photos on Flickr.