2008-04-20

Tulips and Hail

Today my GF and I took our annual trip north to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. I wrote about our previous trip here.

Usually by now the tulips are in full bloom and the daffodils are dead. This spring, though, has been unusually cool so the daffodils were still in full bloom and the tulips were just coming in. There weren't the wide swaths of brilliant color in the fields that we've seen in years past, but it was still a great day with plenty to see and experience.

A key element of the Tulip Festival is the annual Downtown Mt Vernon Street Fair.

I'm a sucker for a street fair. I love browsing the different booths. There's the local photo booth, the hammock booth, the soap booth, the leather goods booth, the windmill booth, and all the other regulars that sell their wares at every fair in the State of Washington. You've probably seen them all at other fairs, too.

Instead of pleasant spring air with a slight chill to it, we got hail. And the hail storm seemed to last for about a half hour. It was cold, hard, and copious. I don’t recall the last time I saw a storm like this. We got slammed with it.

Naturally, we cut our street fair time short, but despite that annoyance, the storm was fascinating and beautiful.


2008-04-19 Sleet Storm in MT Vernon (5)

2008-04-19 Sleet Storm in MT Vernon (12)

2008-04-19 Sleet Storm in MT Vernon (1)

2008-04-19 Sleet Storm in MT Vernon

A short drive took us out of the storm and on to the tulip fields. We headed to the Roozengaarde garden to pick up souvenirs and, of course, spend some time with the flowers.

Roozengaarde is a more formal way of viewing tulips than tromping about in the open fields. We, however, were pretty much done with weather at this point, and opted to skip the open fields and instead spend time in the garden.

The flowers were as beautiful as ever. And the day's precipitation left the delicate petals covered with rain drops.

It also gave me an opportunity to play with the zoom/macro lens I got for Christmas.

It's probably pretty obvious, but I haven't done any Photoshop work on these pictures. There are a few reasons for that .

  1. I prefer the "natural" look
  2. I don't have Photoshop skills
  3. I don't have Photoshop
  4. I'm lazy.


2008-04-19 Tulips etc at Rozengarde (32)

2008-04-19 Tulips etc at Rozengarde (44)

2008-04-19 Tulips etc at Rozengarde (30)

2008-04-19 Tulips etc at Rozengarde (23)

2008-04-19 Tulips etc at Rozengarde (22)

2008-04-19 Tulips etc at Rozengarde (18)

2008-04-19 Tulips etc at Rozengarde (17)

2008-04-19 Tulips etc at Rozengarde (16)

2008-04-19 Tulips etc at Rozengarde (6)


You can see more of my Tulip Festival Pictures here.

The Tulip Festival is always worth the trip. And though the official events are slowly wrapping up, the tulips are just now waking up to welcome visitors.

10 comments:

Daisy said...

Your photo of the pink tulips and the single red tulip is really pretty!

Anonymous said...

It actually snowed for a bit down here in Tacoma last night. It sure doesn't feel like April.

Anonymous said...

I love the Tulip Festival! Since moving away, I've missed that event very much. I order tulips from Roozengarde every now & then just to get my tulip fill!
Thanks for sharing your wonderful pictures.

Ellen said...

We had hail like that last week and it happen to be the first night of one of the major outdoor art events in DT Ft Worth, Texas. Needless say they had to cancel it.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful and breathtaking!

Mom doesn't photoshop either, for the same reasons you listed. Mostly she prefers natural lighting with no special effects. She hardly ever uses a flash.

Erica said...

Your pictures are beautiful. I took my son the to Skagit Valley Tulip Festival last year and we loved it! Your pictures make me envious and want to go back!

SheR. said...

Nice pictures of tulips!!1 Wow!

Anonymous said...

Nice job. I enjoyed the ones water (ice?) droplets.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful, your tulip photos look so real! Those are very expensive here in the Philippines but someone gave me the orange and yellow ones and I was smitten! Sadly, the flowers soon wilted as did my interest in him... bad! :)

Cromely said...

Thanks. I now have several GB of Tulip pictures from over the years. They are very obedient subjects.