On Wednesday, the House of Glee took my father to the Tulip Festival as planned. Despite the ever-present predictions of rain, we had sunny skies all day long. There weren't too many tulips in bloom when we went because of the uncharacteristic cold weather we've had, but there were a few fields to admire and snap photos. The cold feeling I got from the festival was not from the weather, but from the various "hands-off" messages. This year, little water-mill was fenced off, as were the outside tulip displays. I can understand that-- there were probably rude people throwing trash into the water. At one of the merchandise spaces, Lucia found some chimes at child-reach, and began to play with them. A vendor came over to her and asked her to stop playing with them. I imagine that hearing the chimes all day irritated the merchants. Even though the festival had only run for a little over a week, I got the general feeling that the merchants were tired of it already. Maybe that was a projection on my part?
Here's an article from one of my local papers on the Tulip Festival: The wait is over: Skagit tulips starting to bloom, by Madeline McKenzie. I think we might be done with the tulip festival for awhile. With both the Tulip Festival and the day-trip to Mount Rainier, I remembered again this week how little I like sitting in a car for any length of time!
The visit with my father was good, though. As a grandfather, his patience with Lucia's questions and demands for stories is far greater than Bede's and mine. Still, Bede managed to think up two stories about tulip root children* on the spot. "This is why I married you," I told him.
*Technically, tulip root children are "bulb babies."
