Sequim Lavender Festival 2017 - Plan for a 2018 Visit!

The 2018 Lavender Festival in Sequim, Washington is set for 20, 21 and 22nd of July.  

This is a run down with photos of last year.  

Lavender is seasonal in the months of July and August. Many rows of lavender fields create great sights and smells.  

The street fair is where we started our journey last year.  As it says on the festival website, the fair is moving to a park in 2018.  This could be a better backdrop than a actual street..  A typical street fair with booths of stuff for sale and a food court, some stalls are to do with lavender and some not as much, some not at all.

  We made our way through the crowds and tat for a much needed lunch, serenaded by various bands playing in the periphery.  

In Sequim you are very near Dungeness, so we wanted crab.  The seafood Spot/Randall's Catering footed that bill.  Lavender Balsamic, even better!  There is an option to get a cup of chowder as well. 

For dessert, there were many choices available.  These caramels did just fine fulfilling our sweet tooth.

There is a list of free farm tours that seem to be affiliated with the festivial, this is where it is all at for me.  If you looked at the website, saw Graysmarsh Farm listed as one of the 7 farms partisipating.

I'm glad we traveled here, they also have a berry farm.  When you enter you will be guided by signs and attendants as to where to go for lavender. 

 The surroundings are beautiful.  Rows and rows of the flowers on undulating, tree lined hills.   

You can get a pair of shears to clip your own bouquet. 

Even if you don't wield a pair of clippers, just being in between the rows was delightful.  Watching busy bees relishing the buds.

Collected your full bunch?  Head back to the hut  and have them bound, and settle up monetarily.

You can also purchase pre-cut bundles.

Somewhere along the way, we picked up a paper from the area that listed other events for the weekend and had a feature for the next stop.

Victor's Lavender Farm

I get the feeling that this farm is not affiliated with the festival.  It is in the area, but not listed on the list of free farm tours.  On Victor's website it states, "PART OF SEQUIM LAVENDER WEEKEND." It just clues me in a bit.  Anyway, they have sort of their own festival going on.  This was my favourite part of the trip.

Entering the car park, there is immediately LAVENDER!  The white lavender mixed with the purple catches the eye straight away.

The large drying shed with a bounty of upside down beauties strung up together.  Sounds ominous but, it is a good thing, really!

SEE!

This place had many lavender refreshments available.  More than the street fair, I dare say.

The lavender tamales were a treat (not pictured).  The famous Washington sausage made their mark here.  

 Many, Many treats in the gift shop.  This is where I purchased the culinary lavender for my recipe here:

                                                          Lavender Cowboy Biscuits

By the end of this trip, one will be burping with a floral scent!

In addition to the food there are also plants and toiletries for sale.

Victor's had their live bands playing and workshops available, as well.  Like I said, a festival all it's own.

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Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

Let this serve as a warning, this entry in my travel blog is filled with pictures of flowers.  So many flowers, it just may make you sneeze just thinking about it.

This trip to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival was in April 2017.  The festival in 2018 with be the whole month of April.  Let this serve as ample time to plan your trip here.  You can find yourself here with an hour drive north from Seattle.

If you have ever visited the Netherlands or just flown over it on a European trip, this valley could bring back memories with seas of colourful flowers for miles.

A must stop on your tour should be to RoozenGaarde.  I am doing a copy and paste of relevant info right from the Roozengaarde site for easy reference here:

RoozenGaarde (www.Tulips.com) is a division of Washington Bulb Company Inc., the largest flower bulb grower in North America with more than 1000 acres of tulip, daffodil, and iris fields located in the Skagit Valley. In addition to the vast fields of flowers, we also grow tulips and lilies year round in our 15 acres of greenhouses.

Planted in the display garden are 90+ varieties of tulips and over 150 flower bulb varieties in total. Included are tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocus, muscari and other specialty flowers.


RoozenGaarde is located at 15867 Beaver Marsh Rd, Mount Vernon, WA
Current hours are 9am - 6pm Monday through Saturday and 11am - 4pm on Sundays.
RoozenGaarde IS OPEN YEAR ROUND. 


Admission is $7 per person and $6 for those with military ID. Children 5 and under are FREE.

Admission for the garden is only charged during the spring bloom period. Visitors are welcome to stroll the garden free of charge outside of this period.

Parking:

We provide access for parking at many of our tulip field locations. This parking is weather permitting. Parking is FREE with a RoozenGaarde admission ticket purchased on the same day. Parking is $7 without an admission ticket, BUT this ticket can also be used for a single admission to our display garden on the day of purchase. Both admission and parking tickets are only valid on the day of purchase.

On the way to RoozenGaarde you will see the landscape light up with fields and fields colour.  As you park you will see flowers in planters, then as you enter the queue to get inside and pay admission, you will be amongst the flowers in displays winding your way there.

You can check the Bloom Map to get updated conditions and peak blooming times.

There is a gift shop with all kinds of goodies, including cut flowers.

On the inside of the gate, there are undulating varieties and colours in the different beds forming patterns.

This one looks like pink gems floating in the clouds.

Some are surrounding carpets of one variety.

Some surround interesting, mature trees.

....Or landscape features.

In one view there is a backdrop of mountains in the distance.

Other designs surround groomed shrubbery.

The photographer in you will relish at the choices for close-ups, as well.

Driving around you will see fields like this and you can stop to walk around and take pictures.  Be sure to get a current map annually, there is some crop rotation.

This is another chance to buy cut flowers!  We bought some.  I used them in a photo shoot on my food blog:

I Want My Umami - A Shortcut To Bostock

Take more photos.....

Plenty of photos!

The tulips looking to the sunset.

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Leaf Peeper Series - Westport, New York Area

With a birth in the family, I didn't get this posted before leaf peeping season's ending.  This will serve as ideas for next season - Time to plan.

A visit to Westport, New York area will round things out nicely for this series.

Westport is the birthplace of the Adirondack chair and is included in Adirondack Park.

One of my dreams (a leaf peeper and train lover's dream) is to take a train from NYC to Montreal.  The The Adirondack travels through the Westport area!

 

Leaf Peeping on the go!

 

Where are we going?  Well, how about the ruins of a British fort?

Enter Fort Crown Point....Notice, still leaf peeping.

Make your trip here part of a revolutionary day.

Very close by, practically on the same site (unheard of) is a French fort ruins:

 

Just a short jaunt over the bridge....

 

It is sweet to peep and eat!

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