Bear with me, this is a super picture heavy post, but I don't think you'll mind too much.
It has been a warm winter (it's never like this in Seattle, they say), and spring is everywhere right now! All the trees and flowers are budding. Since the winter was so warm, everything is coming up early, including all the flowers on the flower farms Skagit Valley. Most well known for it's tulip farms, the Skagit Valley is home to tons of flower farms and is a big tourism location (who knew?).
Tulip festival is in April, but the daffodils come up a few weeks before the tulips- usually the "unofficial daffodil festival" is mid-end of March, but given the warm weather, the daffodil farms are in full bloom right now.
So a little trip about an hour north of Seattle landed me on a new weekend adventure. First, in Mt. Vernon, Washington for some lunch downtown, and then here. In daffodil land.
Roozengaarde to be exact. The Roozengaarde gardens and farm is where these lovely flowers and bulbs come from.
No tulips yet, but they are on their way! Since this is still technically "off season", even with daffodils in full bloom, these farms are just getting ready for their huge annual flower festivals. They are all prepping their parking, festivities, and traffic flows, but even though it's a tad bit early (and also perfect timing to check out the farms!), there were a good amount of people who are wandering the fields.
It's a pretty informal come, wander around, maybe stop in the gift shop, kind of day. It just so happened to be a lovely 60 degree day, so wandering the fields was a delight. Cheerful yellow fields of flowers helps.
You aren't really supposed to go in between the daffodil rows, so we stayed close to the edges and only made a minor break in the rules to get some awesome flower field snapshots to prove we were there.
Do all these pictures look the same yet? With a camera in my hand, I just couldn't stop snapping pictures.
It was late afternoon as we wandered, so the sun was beginning to set, which made it even more lovely... if that's even possible.
Doesn't this look like a Microsoft computer wallpaper? Most of the pre-set wallpapers on Windows computers are of Washington locations, and we decided they are probably just snapshots from employees' personal collections...
As we made our way back to the car, we found a few tulip variations just starting to make their debut. It will be so gorgeous up there in a few weeks with all the tulip colors! Helicopter tour, anyone?!?
Their were different kinds of daffodil fields as well- white daffodils, and tiny yellow daffodils.
About 10 miles away is La Conner, Washington, home of the official non-official daffodil festival. Right on the water, it felt a tad beachy and touristy with all kinds of small town charm, shops, and of course, flowers.
We hit up the Quilt and Textile Museum in the Gaches mansion and chatted up a delightful lady who gave us the full scoop on the current exhibits and Gache family history, and who also taught us about making lace (it will not be something I take up as a hobby, although it was quite impressive).
I came across a few Nancy Drew books in an antique store and we grabbed a drink and croissants and sat by the water as the sun set.
I'm hoping to make it back up there once the tulips are in full bloom if the weekend schedule allows...or maybe just every year from now on....
