Full Bloom

You know that it's spring when you're driving down the 20 and all you see is a carpet of pink to your right. Since the day we arrived in February, all anyone could talk about was the tulips. "Just wait till spring, the tulips will blow your mind." And so they have.

It has been a strange winter... the sun shined far too bright and gave everyone the impression that Winter forgot to come to Anacortes this year, but all too soon, the sun disappeared and now we are left with a fairly drab Spring. Like Winter is pissed that he slept in and is now fighting Spring for some attention. Anyway, the tulips were evidently confused because they bloomed wayyyy too early. Still, people bundle up in their coats and rain boots to brave the wind and massive puddles to see them because no one wants to miss the vibrant, sweeping colors of the millions of flowers that have overtaken Skagit County. Your eyes can't stop widening to let in all the color and you certainly can't deny that it's spring.

The "Tulip Festival" is really just a bunch of local gardens that open up to boast their spring flowers during their first few weeks of spring. Local vendors set up tents within the gardens and gift shoppes stock their shelves for the mobs of tourists that come to visit. There are no parades, no flags and no marching bands. Some places offer helicopter tours, and there are fudge tastings and such. There are events that take place, but they are scattered throughout the county rather than all happening in one place like the term "festival" implies. Nonetheless, the experience is worth it.

We visited Roozengaarde to start. William Roozen (which means "Rose" in Dutch) came to the US in 1947 from Holland after WWII. Since Skagit County has such a similar climate, many Hollanders migrated to the area and began to farm tulips. William purchased 5 acres of tulip fields in 1950 and it has since grown to over 2,000 acres and is the largest tulip distributer in the world. Rumor has it that Roozengaarde ships their bulbs to Holland who, in turn, sells the bulbs back to the US as "Bulbs of Holland"... so... I think that's lame.

Roozengaarde is amazing... there are so many varieties of daffodils, hyacinth, iris and tulips all of which are incredibly colorful. The garden is carefully planted and it blooms into perfect patterns of color and variety while the fields are just vast seas of flowers... To me, the fields are the most visually stunning, not just because the flowers are gorgeous but because I have never seen anything like that up close. Since the tulips are expected to stay in full bloom until early May, we are going to visit the other gardens in the area when the weather is warmer. After tromping through the fields and braving all the elements, we headed to La Conner for some hot soup to warm our bones. Then it seemed appropriate to get some fancy tea and a good book from the local shops to end our day the right way :)

(there were plenty of signs that discouraged playing in the fields but I ignored them. As I should have.)