Best Day and Tulip Festival

Wet Pink Tulip Petal

That Saturday was one of the BEST'est days I have seen in Seattle in about a year. No kidding, I'm not exaggerating.  It was only one of the 2-3 days that the Sun was out for a whole day with no rains, no clouds and temperature comfortably hovering a little over 60F (15C).  Ok, I give it to you that I'm only talking about weekends, because a sunny weekday is only as useful as a 3-1/2 inch floppy inside a Lightscribe CD Drive (lame analogy, I know, I'm on a roll!).

Yellow Tulips Field with Cascasdes in the backdrop

It was a perfect day _NOT_ to spend waste at the office (like all the other weekends ~~sigh~~), so we had already decided to visit Skagit Tulip Festival. Looking back, a hike would have been orders of magnitude more exhilarating, but I was more than glad just to step out into the open air.  With some last-minute changes in plan more people wanted to join and while one group was running late in spite of my insistence of being out-of-the door by 0800hrs. After waiting for long (restlessly) I said let one group go ahead while the second joins.  So we started off at early around 0930 hours and luckily didn't hit any traffic (neither on I-5 nor on the internal roads). The second group (who started 20 minutes after us came more than an hour and a half later). A colleague of mine at office, I later learned, left at noon for the festival and was stuck in a 20+ long miles traffic jam! Indeed, while returning I counted the line on other side of the freeway, it had come to a crawl for 10 miles, after which I stopped paying attention on the other side (because I was driving :-P).

Long story short, I was as ecstatic for being out in the sun with clear skies as a kid is when you let him loose in a candy store with his favorite Disney Characters. I felt alive again!  I am not a bot no more.  I pray to thee, for you give life, Sun!  I was breathing sun :D
The weather forecast looks abysmal for rest of the Spring, so I hope I make best of the days that are good (read: sunny).
Here are some shots form my Tulips Album for the year 2011.

Beautiful Pink Tulips

Tulips by a Pond

At the Heart of Every Tulip!

And now time for one nice Group Photo

Full Album here: Tulip Festival 2011!

Additional Info:

2011 seems the worst year on record with the fewest number of days above 55F, per one blogger on his/her post: Are Northwest Springs Getting Worse?