The Skagit Valley, Washington state: Springtime makes this verdant valley in northwest Washington explode with color, carpeting the land with hundreds of acres of tulips, daffodils and irises. The area is best known for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, which runs throughout April and was featured in “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.” Display gardens abound throughout the valley for you to visit, but you can also enjoy the living jewels without getting out of your car: Many of the flower fields lie right next to the road. - MSN Online
I will tell you that some of my fondest memories were of the quickly moving clouds casting shadows on my bedroom walls as the sun would shine through.
Waking up with the sun on May 1 and going into the tulip fields next to our house and picking TONS of tulips to leave on the doorstep for my mom (this was before I was old enough to realize that some may consider this theft...).
Spring was also a time when the cows would inevitably get out of the fence meaning that I would have to run through the fields at night with my dad trying to get them back home.
This was also back in the day when my dad could drive our pick-up truck over to Washington Bulb Co. and get a truckload of tulip and daffodil bulbs - FOR FREE - and feed them to our cows. This would fatten them up quickly and ease the transition from winter hay to summer grass.
Can you even imagine how many thousands of dollars they would sell those bulbs for now! You've got to love the marketing genius behind it all, the crew bosses that made it happen, Leo Roozen (this is a current photo of him but he did not look so nice when he was younger!!) in his white pickup that would strike fear in the hearts of children throughout the land, and the slave labor of young elementary school children willing to pick 200 feet of bulbs for $5.00 a row and go home only to blow a pound of dirt out of their noses. I loved the good old days!
