Photo of the Day: Tidal Basin, DC

I snapped this photo late last November—not the ideal time to see the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, from what I’ve heard, but still preferable to the very late winter blast that our nation’s capital has received lately.

I haven’t yet glimpsed this body of water when the cherry blossoms bloom and grace its shores. The sight, I gather, is so wondrous that this period in spring is one of the busiest times of the year in DC.

Still, even what I saw, on a bright fall day marked by flame-colored leaves, was dazzling, with the shimmering reflections of this man-man inlet forming an incomparable background to stirring memorials to some of our nation’s most illustrious figures—Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, John Paul Jones, Martin Luther King Jr., and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.