In DC in the snow

"Today's previously scheduled Sunshine Week Commemorative Program has been postponed" (Due to the snow storm?). .. The United States Department of Justice...

Its a snow day in DC... Schools, Federal offices  most Smithsonian museums including the zoo are closed... Buses are on a snow schedule... avoiding steep hills... The Metro is open and mostly on time...

The American Museum of Art - National Portrait Gallery are open... (as is the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum) But the Art library is not...   This is not a good day for research...

But the Capital Brewing Company is open with beer and corned beef... (rumor suggests beer is also available, we note than none was green)

In downtown DC it's a bit strange... Snow still falling,  wonderful big fluffy flakes... The streets are plowed, the sidewalks shoveled clean...  It's new snow, still clean and white rather than dirty and grey...  it's warm enough so that streets and gutters are wet... It's cold, but not miserably so.  Needless to say, there were no cherry blossoms in sight.

The streets are uncrowded... Weirdly so... Both the workers and tourist are staying away... We have the city mostly to ourselves.  Of course in a city where visitors come to see museums, with most museums closed the visitors have congregated at the the two that are open... so the Art Museum felt uncomfortably crowded... it was difficult to move around, get a clear view of larger paintings or to read the information about the work and artist...  One unexpected pleasure... the strange patterns of snow on the glass courtyard roof...

From the art museums we walked across the National Mall... around the edges of the closed Hirshhorn sculpture garden with neatly cleaned walkways... but still closed...  to a Metro station.

Steph found a news report on her phone... "This is the third biggest snow storm so late in the season and the 10th greatest snow storm on record for DC in March..".  per USA Today...  It didn't feel like a snow emergency... just like a nice spring snow... certainly not enough to close a city...

The closures had some advantages... the drive home from Metro to the house, normally a 20 minute dive was only 8 minutes on a clear dry freeway...