Tulip Traffic Tie-up

The Family Smitty took a trip to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival this past weekend. The nice weather brought out the masses and the freeway was reduced to stop-and-go a few miles before we got to Mount Vernon. Bringing the bikes gave us the freedom to get off the freeway, park the car, and pedal the rest of the way into town and across the river to the land of tulips.

This was our first time at the tulip festival. The fields are impressive but I was more surprised by how few fields there were. For some reason I thought the tulips would go for miles rather than be isolated into a half dozen fields each a mile or 2 apart.

Most of our riding was on the shoulder of paved roads but we got off the blacktop onto less crowded and more quiet dirt lanes for a couple brief stretches.

We started talking to a guy who had the same bike as Mrs. Smitty. We were doing the same route in opposite directions so we each shared a bit of info about fields and road conditions ahead. He offered to snap a family portrait of the the Smitty clan. We don't have many pics with all of us together. Few things say "family" like matching helmets.

I didn't see it in any of the other fields, but for some reason the fields of yellow tulips were speckled with the occasional red loner.

It was an excellent family friendly outing. The bikes made it so much more accessible and relaxing than if we had tried to do it by car.