A contained Tulip Festival

The weather was not kind to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival this year.  The chilly spring and non-stop drizzle delayed the tulip blooms quite a bit. Whereas during many years you could drive up there in the mid-April and see acres and acres of brilliant color that looked like you could set sail on and float across a sea of red, this year, it wasn’t quite to be.

When my Mother and I took the drive up there one afternoon, there was plenty of green, and the occasional spot of yellow as the Daffodils made their last stand, the tulip blooms remained scarce.

Fortunately, we still got to experience the reds and purples of the Roozengaarde display gardens. The contained and disciplined gardens showcase a variety of blooms and it was a enough of a tulip fix for the year.
 
I shot these images using the same macro lens I brought to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show.
This is just a sampling of the pictures from that day.  You can find more of my pictures from that day here, on my Flickr page.

Of course it was drizzling that day, which made walking in the nature more complicated, but it did do some interesting things to the flowers. The water droplets clung to the tulips as though they feared being soaked up by the ground.

They also did something that’s I’d only every seen on CSI. They captured the reflection of neighboring plants, the sky, and me. Granted, it was more of a silhouette and a bit distorted. It would never result in my conviction for anything, but it was still quite cool. 

I’m not sure how well that translates to the small image posted in Blogger; you may need to open the images to their full size on Flickr to check it out (Image 1, Image 2, Image 3).

In this shot, I used the flash.  It made the water droplets on the ruffled petal edges sparkle like an artificial, fiber optic Christmas tree. It’s a little challenging to see it in this post, but you can see a larger version here.

I was able to get very tight on this one.

They did some creative stuff with the flowers, creating a blue river of Irises through the beds.

It wasn’t the wide swaths of color I’d seen in previous years, but it was still worth the visit.
You can find posts from previous visits to the Tulip Festival here:

Tulips and Hail

Tulip Festival -- 2006

And you can find more pictures from various years here.

Hurricane Ridge

After a visit to the Olympic Game Farm, The GF and I headed into Olympic National Park to visit Hurricane Ridge.  The trip up there is a beautiful, windy drive through the trees.

This video shows part of the drive.  The GF just held the camera up to the windshield.  We are lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the country.




You can also see the video on Youtube here.

One the drive, we pulled off at a scenic turnout.  The overlook was at Ancient Lake Morse.

Thousans of years ago, a great ice sheet from Canada flowed south through the Puget Sound and west through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The ice shee abutted alpine glaciers flowing from the Olympic Mountains. As warming occurred, meltwater from mountain glaciers was dammed by the ice sheet, forming ancient Lake Morse. Continued warming caused the ice sheet to withdraw, draining the lake. Morse creek now parallels the road. In ancient times it flowed over a ridge of soft sediments connecting Blue and Round Mountains. When glaciers dammed the creek, it was diverted to a new path between Round Mountain and the present road, cutting through hard lava rocks. The resulting gorge is visible as you drive down the road or from the short trail at the Tunnels parking area.

The science is cool, but the scene is impressive.  I shot these pcitures with a 10mm - 17mm fish eye lens.  It was my best shot at capturing the land scape, but it's still a poor substitute for the real thing.

I didn't expect this to be a great portrait lens, but I really like how this turned out.  I had the camera 3 feet from the GF's face, and she thought I was nuts (which puts her into a rather large group).  But I think it worked out.

She shot some, as well.

We continued up the road to the visitors center and gift shop.  The views were much more open there. And the crowds were much larger.  From here, we could see the glaciers in the mountains and the August snow in the park.

From there we drove a short distance to the Hurricane Ridge trail head.  Then we began walking.  Uphill.  It took a little longer than I expected -- probably about an hour (maybe a little more).  It's 1.5 miles to the ridge, but we stopped a bunch of times to take pictures and to take in the scenery. While the guidebooks talked about cold weather in the middle of summer, we lucked out and had gorgeous weather the whole time.

It was quite a walk, but the views up top made it all worthwhile.  Once we got up there. a deer walked right past us.  It was pretty amazing how close it was.

When we turned around, we had fantastic views of the Strait on Juan de Fuca.  See that land across the water?  That's Canada.

The GF had a lot of fun, too.

Eventually, it was time to head back.  We made sure to spend enough time up there to be sure the walk was worth it.

If you go, dress in layers.  We got lucky with how warm it was.  Also, be aware that the trail isn't wide.  And there are no gurad rails or hand holds.  And off to one side there are major dropoffs.  Bring water and snacks to stay fueld up.  And take your time. The views are worth it and your lungs will appreciate it, especially if you aren't acclimated to the 5700 foot elevation.  You can't count on cell phone service along the way, although I did manage to check in on foursquare at the top of the trail.

It was a fantastic, if tiring experience.

You can see more pictures here.

Olympic Game Farm -- Sequim, WA

While many folks may not believe it, there are plenty of non-Twilight related activities on the Olympic Peninsula.

On 2010-08-28, The GF and I hopped on the Edmonds-Kingston ferry to head over to Sequim and visit the Olympic Game Farm. It started as a training and storage facility for animal actors from Disney movies.  While the farm doesn't do much with the movie industry these days, there are still plenty of animals at the farm waiting for people to visit.

Unlike many zoos, most of the animals aren't in cages.  They roam free and visitors drive throuh the area.  The staff will be happy to sell you loaves of bread at the gate (I recomend you get at least 5) so you can feed the animals. That's right, you can actually feed them by hand.  The critters will lumber up to your car window to take the sliced bread right from your hand.

There are really three sections to the drive.  The first section is filled with bears, llamas, zebras, yaks, and more.  The second section isn't as much fun.  It's a caged area for big cats like lions and similar animals.  That part actually looks like a zoo from years ago.  I imagine the animals are well cared for, but it seems a little more depressing.  The third part is another drive thru zone, but the animals are bigger and potentially more dangerous, so you are supposed to keep your windows closed an not feed the bison.  This three minute video shows parts 1 and 3.  

You can also see the video here, on YouTube.

We had a great visit.  And despite the ability of many of those anamils to kill people if they chose, they are still adorable.

You can see more of my pictures of the Olympic Game Farm here.  A few of them also appear below.

One of the first things visitors see is a prarie dog mound.

The prarie dogs apparently decided to entertain some birds, too.

Llamas were some of the most aggressive animals.  Or maybe it's just because they were so many.  They walked from car to car looking for bread. 

Several zebras sought out their own bread, too.

The yaks certainly enjoyed their snacks, but they were less assertive.  Instead they just milled about.  Once they would get their bread, or realize they weren't getting any, they just sort of leaned against the car or stood in the middle of the road until they came up with something better to do.

The Shoebox Chef decided she was running low on chicken stock while we were there and decided to do something about it.





I'm guessing Peacocks don't make the best soup, and that they are not prey for llamas, zebras, or yaks.





Of course, the bears stole the show.


















The Olympic Animal Farm isn't that many miles from Seattle, but because all that darn water and those mountains tha get in the way, it takes several hours to get there.  If you've got a free day in the Seattle area, and like to get close up to animals beyond cats, dogs, and squirrels, be sure to visit.  Just keep the top up on the convertible.

More pictures available here.