L'Orage

On Friday night, some friends and I decided to go downtown and hang out. On the way there, we encountered a terrible storm. Wind, rain, lightning, thunder, you name it. Due to the weather conditions, there was some heavy traffic. What was the specific cause of the traffic? Trees. Trees had fallen everywhere, blocking roads and lanes. It seriously looked like a tornado had blown through. On what was a two-lane highway, people had to merge into one lane because a fallen tree was blocking one side. As our car approached the fallen tree, my friend David decided that they (he and the boys in the back seat) should get out and move the tree, free up the lane, and solve the traffic problem. Good idea right? Well, the tree turned out to be a little bit bigger than they expected. Not to mention it was still attached at the trunk. They pushed and pulled to no avail. Now, all muddy and wet, what were they to do? Get back into the car and admit defeat? No! Other men began pulling off the side of the road to stop and help with the tree removal. I sat in the car and watched as men swarmed to the scene and joined in the effort. (One man even had a leg cast on!) It was quite the spectacle. After the arrival and aid of several men (including the police), the tree was successfully cleared from the road and traffic was able to return to a normal pace. We passed several more fallen trees along the road as we approached the city, but decided that we had had enough fun for one night.

Once we finally arrived in D.C. we found several tree casualties there as well. Here is a sampling:

This particular tree was absolutely beautiful. It made me sad to see that it had fallen. I wondered about the tree's life, its story, how old it was. I felt as though a great historical figure had died. Situated not far from the White House, I wondered how many presidents the tree had witnessed come in and out of office.

Here is Travis in front of the tree, just to give you an idea of how big it was.

Here is David pretending to pull the tree apart with his brute strength.