Five Years of Trips, Four Years of Tulips

Five years ago Mindy and I took our first trip to see the tulips in Mt. Vernon. I admit, after sitting in stand still traffic for two and a half hours just to see flowers we have in our front yard, I wasn't the most positive husband (or fiancee at that point).

Four years ago, we did the same thing. Stupid.

Three years ago, we wised up and went on a weekday night to avoid the traffic and decided to ride our bikes from field to field. It sounds perfect, until I add that we went a bit late in the season and got to experience field after field of beautiful, green, beheaded stems.

Finally, last year we went with our friends the Terpenings and the Aries and thanks to Dustin's back-road knowledge we didn't hit any traffic, and we had a pretty good time--for spending the afternoon looking at flowers.

This year Mindy and I decided to do things a bit differently and we paid to see the flowers. Normally, we are able to pull off the side of the road and see beautiful fields for free. However, since we'd had (or not had) that experience the last four years we figured we should see if paying to see a field yielded a better experience. For four bucks a piece, we weren't disappointed. Not only were there large fields of tulips to walk through, but the landscaped gardens were pretty amazing and they contained many different kinds of tulips.

Here is some of what we saw:

If I weren't a teacher and a photographer, I would like to name tulips: