You may notice a careful and willful avoidance of a certain topic. There isn’t really any specific reason other than it just makes me sad to dwell on and there are better venues to blather on about that for the present.
Anyway, today was the first official day of the annual Tulip Festival. It’s one of my favorite local events and I’ve been going almost every year since I was a child. Usually with my dad. But now that I’m, like, an adult or something and live across the street from the park I make a point to check out the flowers before the actual event. With well over 200,000 bulbs planted each year, there is a lot to see and it is always so incredibly pretty. Plus, it almost always rains during the actual event, which not only makes it miserable to attend but often sadly ruins the blooms beforehand.
I found out last weekend that my mom had never been, so even though it was raining and dreary she was very eager to go. So why I was so surprised this morning when she showed up at my doorstep, with Paulie in tow, about an hour before the festival even started is beyond me.
As impressive as the tulips are, I have to say it was quite an experience walking through Washington Park with my mom. She’d never really been through the park and kept pointing out how pretty it was and marveling at its size . . . and pausing several times to check out the ducks. Of course, all of us were very awed by the tulips. And even though I’d already checked out the blooms twice earlier this week, I quite literally walked around them for an hour as my mother inspected each separate bed! Next we hit up the food vendors and then spent some three hours strolling up and down the many, many booths where everything from jewelry and handbags to walking sticks and art from recycled tin cans was being sold. Needless to say, we got in a lot of walking through the intermittent — and sometimes very hard — rain. But everyone enjoyed themselves.
It’s highly likely I’ll be back wandering the park tomorrow for the second day of the festival as Dad and Keith might visit. Depending on the weather — and my level of desire to see Iron Man 2 — I might go regardless. But anyway, for those interested, here’s the full set of photos I’ve taken throughout the week of all the pretty.
