Tulip Festival & Deception Pass

Sunday April 17, 2011

After church & lunch we left for Mount Vernon to go to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. There are two tulip show gardens by RoozenGaarde and Tulip Town. Joe was not about to pay to view flowers so I guided him down streets with fields currently in bloom. Even though there were many no parking signs on the streets, many people had the same idea as us. We pulled off, snapped a few pictures and continued on our way to the next field. The field flowers are grown and harvested by Washington Bulb Co., Inc./RoozenGaarde, one of the world’s largest growers of tulips. We also saw a daffodil field one top of many yellow, pink and red tulip fields. I didn’t see any iris, my favorite flower, in bloom. It was amazing to see these bright fields of color with the Cascade Mountains as a backdrop. It was a beautiful day. Joe wanted to stay home for a Sunday afternoon nap and I am so glad I dragged him out of the house on such a gorgeous day. PACCAR, where Joe works in Mount Vernon, was having an open house on Saturday that I wished we could have made it to, but we had too many rentals to see in Mill Creek. It was raining Saturday afternoon on our way back so we decided not to go to the Tulip Festival yet. It was such a beautiful day to see these amazing fields of flowers.

 

Next, we drove over the bridge onto Fidalgo Island, to historic downtown Anacortes. It’s been a challenge to learn the correct way to pronounce names of places. Many are Indian names. My way of remembering Anacortes, is it was named after a man’s wife’s maiden name, Anna Curtis. I have to think that first before my Spanish pronunciation comes out. My mom would have loved to come here. They have a quilt walk in conjunction with the Tulip Festival in April. Maybe they can visit this time next year. I’m sure she would love it. We walked along the marina for a bit. I snapped a picture looking back to the Cascade Mountains on the mainland. 

We drove down to Deception Pass, which has a bridge connecting Fidalgo Island to Whidbey Island to the south. When Captain Vancouver of England first explored the area he believed the pass was a small bay or inlet. When one of his men, Joseph Whidbey discovered the land to the south was an island, Vancouver named the deceiving waterway “Deception Pass.” It is 9 miles south of Anacortes. Due to the temperate climate in the “rain shadow” above Seattle, there is an abundance of birds and waterfowl here in the winter. This area is laden with bald eagles. When we parked before the bridge, I saw one circled the treetops above. The bridge was completed in 1935. The total construction cost was just under $490,000. It cost more in the 1990s just to repaint the bridge. The 976’ span bridge connected Whidbey Island to the tiny Pass Island and Pass Island to Fidalgo Island. Deception Pass has dramatic tidal flows and whirlpools moving quickly. It is class 2 and 3 rapids for kayakers. To the east of the bridge is Ben Ure Island, which became infamous for its activity of smuggling illegal Chinese immigrants for local labor. The pirates would tie the illegal immigrants up in burlap bags so that if custom agents were to approach then they could easily toss the bags overboard. The tidal currents would carry the discarded immigrant’s bodies to San Juan Island to the northwest of the pass. Many ended up in what became known as Dead Man’s Bay. As we were walking back to the car, we saw a seaplane giving an air tour of the area around Deception Pass, heading to the San Juan Islands. 

Deception Pass State Park is the most visited park in Washington. The 2002 horror movie The Ring was partly filmed near the pass. There are massive old trees here. I loved it. We walked out to North Beach which was strewn with old logs. It was a great viewpoint to see the Deception Pass Bridge. We hiked around this area some. There were a lot of people here doing the same thing. I can’t imagine how busy it would be in the summertime.

We are thinking about camping here for our anniversary in May. There are a lot of hiking trails (30 miles worth) to do at Deception Pass State Park, like Lighthouse Point Trail, Bowman Bay Trail, and Rosario Head Trail with great vistas. There are 320 campsites which hopefully won’t go too fast. Hopefully we’ll be able to get one of the high land sites in case it rains around the time we go (which I’m sure it will). Between 1910-1914 a prison rock quarry was operated on the Fidalgo island side of the pass. Guards stood watch at the quarry as prisoners cut the rock into gravel and loaded it onto barges located at the base of the cliff atop the pass’ waters. Remains of the camp and abandoned quarry can still be found, but is hazardous with several fatal accidents over the years when visitors have ventured onto the steep cliffs. The curiosity may get the best of me. For some reason I’m dying to see it.