Tulips! An April Respite
- At April 09, 2016
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
- 0
Since AWP hit us both like a truck, and we jumped right back into the stress of work, high-pressure house bids (losing, sadly, a dream house in a dream neighborhood) and scheduling medical tests as soon as we got home, we decided we needed a bit of a real break, so we took a day to go up and visit the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. We also got to visit one of our favorite towns, La Conner, WA, where you can find a cute sunhat and a gluten-free cookie (thanks Seeds!) in between trips to the tulip fields. We saw bald eagles and my beloved snow geese in flight (no pics this time, sorry, but they are just amazing!) We got to play tourist in a place we could definitely see ourselves living someday. (Did you know National Geographic listed the Skagit Tulip Festival as one of the top ten spring trips in the world this year? Yes, it’s that good. I missed this more than anything when we lived in California.)
The weather has been just beautiful, in the seventies and sunny. It makes every day feel a little bit like a pleasant respite. Today we had nothing scheduled so we slept in. I got to walk slowly and notice the rustle of hummingbirds in the flowers beside me, the scree and flap of stellar jays and red-winged blackbirds, rabbits in the grass, a heron overhead. When the Northwest hands you sunny weather in April, so you can actually see the blooms and mountains that hid throughout March and February, you pretty much have a pass to go out and enjoy it. Plus, I have my 43rd birthday AND a scary medical test coming up at the end of the month, so I thought it’s a good time to shore up my reserves. I am looking forward to coming back to town (hopefully!) to visit the Skagit River Poetry Festival in May. The tulips will be gone but the town will be full of poets!