As college commencements take place across the District, the first signs of Washington’s summer transfusion, in which students and politicos are replaced by tourists and interns, have begun to appear. A few weeks remain in the public school year, so local parents have not yet begun intensive vacationing, and while generally nice weather has surely fueled the incidence of office hooky, it’s still pre-Memorial Day, after which casual Friday means a jaunt to the beach.

But it seems to us like the summer brakes have been tapped. Our Metro rides this week have been less jammed and our breakfast shop has been a ghosttown. We’re speculating that the overwhelming sense of lameduckedness emanating from the White House and a crumbling majority on the Hill have increased the perception that pretty much nothing is going to get done this summer, pushing everyone’s vacation schedule forward. We could be wrong, though, so we’d thought we’d run the question by our readers. Does it seem slow in town to you guys? Has summer come early this year?

Picture taken by Jon-Miles.