Before anything, the photos: Hiking around Camp Fraser Nature Preserve and Cherry Blossoms at Sunset.

Yesterday morning at Camp Fraser, I woke up early and took a sunrise hike around the nature preserve by the Potomac River, deliberately leaving my camera behind so I could enjoy the walk without having to think about flash and composition and timing and shutter speed and exposure. Along the way I saw deer, Canadian geese, a beaver slapping its tail in the water, and a red fox.

The rest of the day consisted of talks on vocation, a fun ride on a zip line, and two bees found mating on someone’s bag. Before the group left, I took the hike again, this time with a camera, and met up with a girl on a horse and a lady with two dogs, and two black snakes in a fallen tree trunk.

After getting back from camp, with a couple of hours of sun still left, I headed over to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms, stopping along the way to admire a peregrine falcon which had perched in a tree along the National Mall, alongside the remains of its lunch — the half-eaten carcass of a squirrel. Many stopped to gawk at the bird before it spread its wings and flew off to the north, continuing its migration from South America to Canada.

The cherry blossoms did not disappoint, and I walked the full perimeter of the Tidal Basin and took about 50 photos, before staggering home via Metro and flopping into bed. Easily one of the best Saturdays I’ve ever had.