Monday, April 7, 2008

Tandy Hills Park and the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

I had not talked to my ex-wife for almost 2 years, so I called her yesterday while I was lounging by the pool (I mention lounging by the pool to annoy my 2 Northwest readers who are shivering today).

And to further annoy my 2 Northwest readers, today I went hiking at Tandy Hills Park and it was so HOT I had to hike shirtless and even then was too HOT. And now I'm slightly sunburned.

The wildflowers are sprouting out all over, including Tandy Hills Park. The photo I took of that pink wildflower you see above does not quite capture the almost neon-like flashiness of the color.

I'm pretty sure the purple flowers you see on the right are not wildflowers, they look like something that came from a bulb, like flowers you see in my former locale, that being the Skagit Valley of Washington.

Speaking of flowers and the Skagit Valley, this year is the 25th Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. Tulips, Flags, Daffodils, Irises and I forget what other type flowers are grown commericially in the Skagit Valley with the resulting bulbs sent all over the world. The Tulip Festival lasts several weeks with events happening all over the valley. Depending on the weather around a million visitors show up causing awful traffic jams. To help spread the pain things like Tulip Town were built. Buses are brought in to provide a sort of mass transit system to try and cut down on the number of cars. If there was a place that you might call the Heart of the Tulip Festival that would likely be Roozengaarde with their huge show garden.

The wildflowers in Texas look like a natural version of the Skagit Valley's acres of planted color. A few Easters ago I went down to the Fredericksburg zone to hike Enchanted Rock. Just outside of Fredericksburg there is a wildflower seed producing place with planted fields. It's called Wildseed Farms and it was very similar to Roozengaarde, except instead of Dutch stuff like Windmills, Wildseed has Cowboys cooking BBQ which made Wildseed Farms smell way better than Roozengaarde.

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