Wednesday, April 19, 2006

 

Me, my Miata and some tulips

The weather has finally gotten better here in the northwest and I was able to take the top down on my Miata. After getting a mocha today I asked my neighbor to take some photo of me in the car while that top is down. Here is the one I liked best:
Me & my Miata

Yesterday I went to the tulip fields to visit Tulip Town with my son & his family. Here are some photos from that trip. Mount Vernon, Washington is the biggest supplier of tulip bulbs in the USA and this is one of the two largest farms with over two million bulbs. The flowers are beautiful but the real "crop" is the bulbs that are shipped all over the world. The month of April is the Tulip Festival here and the farms like to always have tulips in bloom during that time, so they stagger their planting to make sure that they bloom over the whole month. Due to that you will see areas in the photos where the blooms have been removed. Here is a general view of some of those fields, with the mountains in the background and kites flying overhead. The mountains show some of the snow that arrived above 1500' over last weekend and had not yet melted as of yesterday:
Tulips, kites & mountains

This another general scene that shows how there are multiple rows with different colors of blooms. This also shows Mount Baker, our NW Washington State volcano, that is about 30 miles away and around 12,000 feet high. It regularly has the most snowfall of all mountains in the northwest and has snow, lots of it, all year:
Tulips & Mt Baker

One of the areas that has already had the blooms stripped is visible in the foreground. Notice how many different colors there are, and this is just a small part of them:
Tulips in rows

There always seems to be an odd color that manages to slip in & this shows one. There is nothing wrong with this odd tulip but when the blooms have been removed & the bulb dug up, it will look just like the others. Gleaners will move through the fields and remove these odd ones so it will not get mixed in with the intended colored ones:
Tulips & the odd one

I like macros so here is one, looking straight down into one of the blooms:
Tulip macro

I couldn't resist taking some photos of my grand daughter, K, who to me looks better than any of the flowers:
Katie & the Tulips

Tulip Town charges an admission to enter the grounds but they have built up some nice exhibits of things to look at. Here is one of them, with a few tulips in the foreground and a neat barn in the background. The wind had settled down and you can see the kites that earlier were flying now lying on the ground in the middle background:
Tulip Town scene

I wanted to do some playing with Photoshop Elements 4 that I use on my digital images. This is one that I used the watercolor option on. The program has a lot of different "filters" and I guess I need to take the same photo and apply different ones to the same photo, then print them so I can easily see the differences:
Tulips as watercolor

I took about a hundred photos there and these just represent some of them. I may use others during slack times, when I haven't done something interesting or exciting to post about. But this is enough photos for one post. If you want to see them in a larger size you can click on one of them and be whisked to my photo site on Flickr. When there you will come in on the photo you clicked on. If you then click on the spot to the right where it says "Dick Phillips' photostream" you will be shown a palate of about ten thumbnail photos I have uploaded. There are other palates at the bottom of the screen to move around, with about ten per selection. I have 182 photos there as of today. Click on one of those photos to bring it up, then click on "All Sizes" at the top of the photo to go to the largest size. I save most of them in 800 by whatever size they turn out to be resulution. Enjoy.

Comments:
Whoo hooo ! Dick goes topless... You naughty boy!

Gorgeous pics Dick. We should try to get down there for a look at those tulips. How much longer do they bloom for?

Your Grandaughter is a beauty. Thats a fantastic shot of her surrounded by flowers.

Mt Baker is actually a glacial Mountain. Some of that snow cap has been up there for ages! Thats another day trip we intend to do this summer.
 
Beautiful photos, Dick. I have an old Fuji digital camera that my sister and BIL gave to me, but the resolution is not good at all, compared to the newer ones. I'm jealous, and I have camera envy, LOL. :-)

Rainy, sometimes stormy day here, and 70 degrees as I type this at 3:25 in the afternoon.

I'll bet it's still a little cool to go "topless" there. ;)
 
We're in the low 70's here today and for me it's perfect! Dick that's a fabulous picture of you, and your grandaughter is such a cutie patootie!

You do take very lovely pictures, that one of the kites lying on the ground, it could be a prize winner!

Happy Earth Day this Saturday!
 
Very nice tour of the tulip fields, and your granddaughter is the prettiest flower there.
 
Gorgeous photos, Dick. The tulips are stunning, and you and your new Miata look quite handsome, too !!!

Looks like you had a lovely time.

Take care, Meow
 
I got photoshop with this new computer. I don't know what I'm doing yet.

I'm so used to my old software.
 
Great pictures, Dick! When we have a nice day around here, it is gorgeous! Look at the snow still on the foothills!
 
Nice flowers, great subject for pictures taken. We always want to live in Washingston!
 
Hey, did I see you today on Madrona Way just outside Coupeville? I saw about three maybe four MG's pulled over on the side of the road about 2:30 or 3:00. NICE car!! How'd the rally go?
 
We had nice top-down weather all day for the Tulip Rallye today but the wind was a little cool while at the Northern Lights Casino after the event while waiting for results. Tomorrow is supposed to be nicer in the weather department so it sounds like spring has finally arrived. Larry & I didn't win our class (Club Miata NW) but we had fun and were in at the finish just after 13:00. There were 254 cars that entered the event, making it the largest one ever. I did get my mocha while waiting to meet Larry at Starbucks this morning.

Thanks for your nice comments on the photos. I have some from today that I hope to get to tomorrow after church, but most of them are photos of interesting cars from the rally today.

Phyllis, if those MGs you saw in Coupville were from the rally they must have gotten lost & given up. Everyone was supposed to be in at the finish by 14:30, but that did get extended a little since there were so many on the event. I was car #80 since I pre-registered before I left to fly to Tucson to drive the car back.
 
I saw your comment on Life after NEXCOM. Your photos are as beautiful as Mary Lou said. Nice blog :)
 
Great pictures and yes your granddaughter looks better, lol! You take such great pictures. They could be post cards.
 
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