April 25, 2009
Oh boy - another cloudy Saturday with 'chance of showers'. We drove through those 'chancy showers' with the wipers going full blast as we headed for Mount Vernon and the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival today. 'No matter,' we told ourselves. 'The leaden gray skies will set off the glorious colors of the fields full of tulips and daffodils.'

'All of our tulips fields are showing great color with many in full bloom!' promised the info on the Web.Hmmm. There appeared to be far fewer fields than in past years, and the fields seemed to be much smaller. Each field wanted to charge us $4 if we stopped to take pictures. Yikes!

After a semi-futile search up and down the sideroads we made our way to RoozenGaarde, a three-acre show garden where we braved a biting cold wind and rain to wander through the lovely displays.

We hopped back into the car to warm up, heading along the North Cascades Highway to lunch at Diablo Lake Lookout. Oh boy it was cold there too.

And what about the guns? Heh, on our way home through Marblemount, we literally ran into a Civil War re-enactment: Battle of the Northern Pass and the Attack on Marblemount. Guns N' Tulips. What a day.