Tulip Festival

I have been hearing about the Skagit Tulip Festival for probably the past 10 years, but it wasn't until last weekend that I actually got to experience it for myself. The Tulip Festival is held each year in April and is considered a destination event in the Pacific Northwest. Every spring hundreds of thousands of people come to enjoy the celebration of spring as millions of tulips burst into bloom. Farmers raise tulips as an agricultural crop and 100s of acres of blooming flowers are scattered throughout the Skagit Valley.

Since Stewart was working and I didn't think he would be too excited about a flower festival, I headed up north with Tara and Jillian on Sunday afternoon (when we read it may not be so busy). This festival is pop-u-lar!! Traffic was terrible on the freeway and by the time we finally waited in line to park and walked over to the tulip fields it had been over two hours. But I thought the drive was worth it because the tulips really were breathtaking. The intoxicating smell alone was completely overwhelming, and that combined with the vivid colors of the tulips was enough to cause total sensory overload!

I've never seen so many perfect flowers all in one place. We walked down and up row upon row of them and I still couldn't seem to take it all in. It's been a while since the last time I was so amazed by nature. Really, truly, beautiful.

We didn't stay very long because we needed to get home and were worried about the traffic. We had reason to be, and proceeded to sit in miles and miles worth of stop and go traffic before we finally hit the freeway for more stop and go traffic all the way home. So we basically spent about 5 hours in the car to look at tulips for 30 minutes. That being said I'm really glad I went and I have plans for next year that include more friends, an all-day adventure, and definitely some breweries (they seem to be plentiful up there).

Welcome to Spring!