Tulip For Me, Tulip For You, Tulip For One, Tulip For Two (Million!)

Did you know that Skagit county is home to the Tulip Festival? http://www.tulipfestival.org/
It's a beautiful setting... fields of colored tulips in a valley set between the Olympic Mountains and Mt Baker/Cascades.  Will couldn't wait to go frolic in the flowers, he woke me up Saturday morning very early; he couldn't sleep the night before in anticipation of the flowers and arts and crafts festival that lay ahead of us.  Maybe that part is a lie, but it was beautiful and we had a gorgeous day.  See for yourself.

Trip Report: Silver Peak

And what a peak it is!  We took a snowshoeing trip on Sunday, April 15th with our friends (and future new neighbors!) Amy and Kal.  They, of course, were the experienced ones who led the trip and navigated us to our ultimate destination -- Silver Peak.  The day was lovely, blue skies and sunshine most of the time.  We reached the ridge just below Silver Peak and Will, Amy and I stopped there while Kal went on to summit (it was a bit technical and just out of Will and my skill level).  The views were spectacular from every direction.  The entire trip was about 9 miles, and according to the GPS, we reached 5300' and Kal went to 5605' (total elevation gain was nearly 3600').


Kal's official trip report can be found here:
http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/trip-reports/trip_report.2012-04-15.5689738430/

Enjoy some eye candy from the trip, it doesn't do it justice, but take a look anyways :)

Summit of Silver Peak

Amy and me (bottom left).

Amy and I saw a little white bunny -- it was Greek Easter!

Will heading up.

Kal and Will heading up to the ridge.

A cloudy Mt. Rainier in the distance.

It was a beautiful and exhausting day.  We dropped Kal and Amy off and then went out to eat at Paragon, a restaurant in our new neighborhood, and recounted the day over a nice dinner.

Tour of Mt. Rainier

Not the type of 'tour' you are thinking.  We skinned up to Panorama Point at Mt. Rainier, roughly a 1,400 ft. trip from Paradise and it was challenging (for me), to say the least.  It was the first time we had ever ski toured, and going up was much harder than coming down! 

There were points near the top when I was thinking 'Why am I doing this?' and 'Why is Will so far ahead of me?' but it was absolutely beautiful and skiing down was awesome. Some would classify the grueling trip up as 'Type 3 fun'.
http://www.dirtbagdiaries.com/fun_divided_by_three

Oh yeah, when we got back to Seattle in mid-afternoon, we took a picnic to Greenlake and laid out in the 70 degree sun, perfect.  And then Will took me to get frozen yogurt :)