April marks the Tulip Festival in the Pacific Northwest.

Annually, the boys and I load up and head to  Mt. Vernon, Washington where the Tulips are in bloom and ship nationwide {internationally if you count our Canadian neighbors to the north!}. Fields and fields of the beauties – Daffodils, Tulips, Hyacinths….ah…..

All these images were taken at Roozengaarde Flower and Bulb – Mt. Vernon

I could bore you with many, many more images, but you get the drift. SO many different arrangements and varieties to choose from. Before going to this festival nearly a decade ago, I wasn’t very interested in bulbous blooms – my primary interest was native species, eradicating non-natives, in the wild. It was not only my job, but one of my passions.

Now that I have my own little postage stamp of land, I so enjoy seeing those first blooms rise in the spring after the grey, drizzly winter. Little rays of light in my otherwise evergreen, yet dormant, garden. Previous homeowners have a few bulbs scattered around in the border beds and they are a real treat. I’m actually considering ordering bulbs for fall pick-up this year now that I’m getting my garden together. I’m also moving plants out of my half barrels, so that may be another solution.

When the boys were younger, they’d wear boots, bring HotWheels or MatchBox cars, and run them through the mud while I took hundreds of images on them {and the flowers}.

Bikurgurl 2016, Tidepooling

Part of our tradition in going to see the fields of Tulips is to also go to the Straits – Anacortes has Washington Park which overlooks Rosario Strait. Good tidepooling off of *The Loop* – a driving loop that you can also simply walk or jog from the public beach or campsites in the park. We always find diverse abundance of life in the tidepools. Always some dead crab, or crab parts, but many other live animals. We saw many species, including Chiton, Black Tegula (snail), Keyhole Limpets, Blue Clawed Hermit Crabs, Shore Crabs, other snails, Rockfish, and larval stages of insects. We also saw gulls, waterfowl, and a Great Blue Heron {one of my very favorite birds!}. We barely saw some porpoises on this end of the park, but they were far out in the water.

We drove around the rest of the loop and came to our favorite spot with the great views – and we also had some unexpected visitors: Porpoises!

It’s kind of hard to see them – these were taken with my Windows Phone – but if you look near the ampersand of the Watermark, you’ll see them!

Of course, we always get pictures of the boys in the awesome tree!

As you can see, I’m playing with my Watermark – I’m not consistent on getting it to flatten correctly – but it’s getting better!

And no trip north on I-5 would be complete without a stop at Cabelas on the way home – clean restrooms, fun outdoor gear, and all of this {did you know they had an aquarium too?}.

Always a great time when we take a day off for an adventure!

What adventure is calling you?