Tacoma Trio With Tulips & Hank Frank

Waking up my phone this morning I found some photos had arrived overnight. Some from Tacoma, some from Chandler.

The text which came with the photos from Tacoma said, "We would ask where in the Pacific Northwest we are, but these are hardly a challenge."

Well, since there is only one location in the Pacific Northwest where one would see a scene such as that which we see above, it takes zero guess work to determine that Ruby, Theo and David are visiting the Skagit Valley Tulips. 

I did not know that yesterday when I blogged Unexpected Skagit Tulip Festival Visit To The Slotemaker Jones Family Compound that the Tacoma Trio were, at that point in time, visiting the Tulips and the Slotemaker Jones Family Compound.

With the photo above confirming the Tacoma Trio were at the epicenter of the Skagit Tulip Festival, at the Slotemaker Jones Family Compound, with Hank Frank giving Ruby, Theo and David a tour of his orchard.

Not many people in the world have this view from their front, back and side yards. I believe this visit with Hank Frank is the first time the Tacoma Trio met their cousin Joey's first born. I suspect the COVID nightmare had prevented such from happening previously.

And here we see Ruby walking with Hank Frank, continuing Hank Frank's tour of his orchard.

Above David, Ruby and Theo have left the Slotemaker Jones Family Compound to drive a couple miles to the west and south, to the town of La Conner. Behind the Tacoma Trio that is what is known as the Rainbow Bridge, connecting the mainland to Fidalgo Island.

The Rainbow Bridge is a real bridge, built over real water, the Swinomish Channel, to connect to a real island.

Above it looks like the Tacoma Trio are still somewhere on the Skagit Flats, but I cannot tell where they are, exactly.

Well, now, in the above photo, I believe we have left the Skagit River Valley and are now in the Stillaguamish River Valley.

I did not know this giant tree stump still existed. It was a roadside attraction all the way back to when the road one drove from the Skagit Valley, south or north, was called Highway 99, before Interstate 5 arrived in the 1960s.

Eventually this stump ended up in an I-5 rest area near Smokey Point.  Clearly, someone went to the effort to preserve the stump, and protect it by putting a roof over it.

I wonder where in the Pacific Northwest the Tacoma Trio will be taking us next?

Unexpected Skagit Tulip Festival Visit To The Slotemaker Jones Family Compound

 

I saw that which you see above, yesterday, on Facebook.

When I saw the photo image I thought what a great pic of the Skagit Tulips, with Mount Baker hovering in the distance.

Then I read the comments and saw my little brother, Jake Slotemaker Jones, informing us that the house in the photo is owned by his oldest son, who also is my Favorite Nephew Jason, father of Spencer Jack, brother of my Favorite Nephew Joey, who is the father of Hank Frank.

Jake points out that Nephew Joey lives next door, on acreage just to the south, which we know as the Slotemaker Jones Family Compound, at the heart of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.

I do not know when, or if, Jason will be moving to the house he bought next door to his brother. Jason and Spencer Jack currently reside in a house in Mount Vernon, near Hillcrest Park, with Linda Lou being a nearby neighbor.

A couple months ago Jason told me I could stay in his Slotemaker Jones Family Compound house if I came up during the Skagit Tulip Festival time of the year. I indicated I would need an internet connection of the wi-fi sort and was assured that would be available. 

It has been several years, now, since I my eyes have seen any scenic scenery. Not since I was last in Arizona, back in July of 2019, have I seen anything scenic.

It is beginning to look unlikely that I will be heading to the Pacific Northwest this coming summer. A high school class reunion is scheduled which I have little interest in attending.

If I fly anywhere I am thinking it will be somewhere tropical where mangoes grow naturally...

Skagit Valley Tulips Looking At Mount Baker With Chris & Sheila

I saw that which you see above on Facebook, this morning, via the "You know you're from Anacortes when..." Facebook page.

It is the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival time of the year. During the month of the festival more than a million visitors descend on the Skagit Flats to view the flowers and visit the various Tulip venues. On weekends this creates epic traffic jams.

I have not been in the Skagit Valley whilst the tulips are blooming since April of 2006. Since that time a Jones Family Compound has been established on Beaver Marsh Road, near the Roozen Garde epicenter of the Tulip Festival.

A couple months ago the elder Jones Boy told me I could stay in one of the unoccupied houses in the Jones Family Compound if I wanted to visit the valley during Tulip time. This seemed tempting, but I am not quite ready to resume flying, yet.

The past couple days I have been seeing non-Tulip photos of the Skagit Valley zone, on Facebook, via the Washingtonians known and Chris and Sheila. Chris and Sheila have been at the RV Park at the Swinomish Casino Resort.

The Swinomish are one of the Skagit Valley's Native America tribes. The Skagit tribe also has a casino resort. I do not know if the Samish tribe have built a casino since I left living in the valley. My favorite buffet whilst living in Washington was the one found at the Skagit Casino.

One of the Chris and Sheila photos showed me that Mount Baker is back fully covered in white. During last year's drought Mount Baker, and the other Washington volcanoes lost most of their snow covers.

At the above location we are looking east. Anacortes is behind us. To the right are the Skagit Flats, where one finds the Tulips. The town I grew up in, Burlington, is on the other side of that slight hill you see in the middle of the photo, covered with trees. Mount Vernon, the town I lived in before moving to Texas, is to the right a couple miles.

This view of Mount Baker gives on an inkling as to why it might be a bit problematic if Mount Baker decides to erupt again. The last time Mount Baker blew its top was back in the 1860s, if I am remembering correctly.

Back when Mount St. Helens went active and eventually blew up, Mount Baker also got active, blowing off way more steam than it usually blows. It got bad enough that all the recreational land around Mount Baker was closed til the mountain calmed down.

A volcano blowing up is one thing I do not need to worry about at my current mountain free zone location. Today all I have to worry about is keeping cool with the outer world temperature going into the 90s...

Driving By The Skagit Tulip Festival Daffodils With Miss Lori

Facebook continues its daily duty of making me a bit homesick for my old home zone of the Skagit Valley. The above was from this morning's Facebook, on this, the final Sunday of the 2021 version of March.

Below was also on Facebook this morning, via someone who lives closer to the Skagit Valley than I do, and so can easily return when feeling the need.

I do not remember when last I drove on the Skagit Flats during the blooming time of the year. I do remember that at some point in time during the 1990s mom and dad talked me into going with them to the Roozengarde Easter Sunday Sunrise Service. That turned out to be a memorable experience.

Let me see if I can find a Roozengarde website.

Well, that was easy. And Roozengarde managed to get the tulips.com domain name for their website. Click the link and you'll see some colorful photos.

From their website I see Roozengarde is on Beaver Marsh Road. The same road my Favorite Nephew Joey bought a house on. I recollect being told Joey's house and the Hank Frank Orchard was close to Roozengarde.

Joey's big brother, my Favorite Nephew Jason, bought 7 acres adjacent to Joey, on which the future Jones Family Compound may one day be built.

I am guessing that living near the center of the Skagit Tulip Festival gets to be a bit tiresome for Joey, Monique and Hank Frank. I remember finding the throngs and traffic jams to be a bit tiresome years ago, near when the Skagit Tulip Festival became an annual event, when I lived in West Mount Vernon, one block from the traffic clogged Memorial Highway.

A Tale Of Texas Tulips And My Great Grandpa Rejecting The Lone Star State

This morning among the ads on the back page of the Dallas Observer I saw an ad that upon first perusal I thought was advertising tulip fields back in my old home zone of the Skagit Valley of Washington, where the annual Skagit Tulip Festival starts up April 1, lasting through April 30.

What was being advertised was not a tulip field in Washington called Texas-Tulips, but instead what was being advertised was a tulip field in Texas, called, appropriately, Texas-Tulips.

I do not recollect ever seeing a tulip blooming in Texas. I figured the extremes of the climate made that bulb reluctant to bloom.

I figured wrong.

This morning I blogged about the Texas-Tulip operation on my Eyes on Texas blog in a blogging titled Tiptoe Through Texas Tulips.

On the Texas-Tulips website I learned that their "story begins in Holland, the Netherlands."

It seems like just about every tulip story traces back to Holland. I know that is the case with the Skagit Valley tulips.

The Dutch Americans who planted the Texas-Tulips did so in a field located near Pilot Point, east of Denton, at the north end of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

Way back around the start of the new century I had reason to learn my family history, on my dad's side, going all the way back to when my great-great grandpa brought my great-great grandma, great grandpa , great grandma and great aunt to America, back in 1889, the year Washington became a state.

But, it was not to Washington my ancestors first journeyed to when leaving Ellis Island. They ended up in a town somewhere in the middle of America. Iowa maybe. It's been a few years and I have a bad memory. However, I do remember my great grandpa was sent to Texas to see if a Dutch community they'd heard of somewhere in the Denton/Pilot Point zone looked promising.

My great grandpa returned to his family to report that Texas is not where they wanted to be. My great grandpa was then sent, by train, to Washington, eventually ending at the far northwest corner of the state, a short distance from the Canadian border, at a Dutch town called Lynden.

My great grandpa returned to his family with tales of apple orchards, berries growing wild, the tallest trees he'd ever seen, fertile land similar to Holland. And mountains. Soon my relatives boarded a train and made their way to Washington, where they soon had a farm and a road named after them, which exists to this day.

And somehow I ended up in the land of Texas, which my great grandpa rejected a long long time ago....