La Conner in Red and Yellow

Since getting our NEXUS cards last year, Lorne and I hop over the US border (about 45 mins drive from home) quite frequently - and with a much, much shorter wait at the border - mainly to stock up on cheaper groceries courtesy of Trader Joe's, but also to visit the quaint little towns of Fairhaven or La Conner. Fairhaven is perhaps my favourite of the two, not least because we always enjoy a delicious italian meal at Mambo Italiano Cafe, but there are lovely locally-owned shops and pubs there too, whereas La Conner is very cute but perhaps a little quieter and geared towards a slightly older crowd.

The area around La Conner is particularly pretty at this time of year, well known for its vibrant fields of daffodils and tulips, and for once we've actually hopped over the border for both.

A few weeks ago the daffodils were out in full bloom, fields of striking sun-shiney-yellow that brighten even the greyest of days. And this past weekend we finally got brighter weather to make it worth the drive down there again, this time to catch the tulip festival - albeit most of the tulips had already been pulled up, probably because the risk of heavy April showers threatened to demolish what was left of them.

So, while we didn't quite capture the multi-coloured array of tulip fields for which La Conner is famous this time of year, we nevertheless found a large field full of the most incredibly striking, vivid-red tulips I've ever seen in my life. Their colour was so rich and intense it almost hurt your eyes just to look at them. Even my camera (and its operator...) had trouble figuring out the perfect combination of exposure, colour balance and ISO to make the most of the blindingly vibrant spray of red and green.

In fact even the daffodils were a challenge; partly because of the slightly cloudier weather that day, but also because of the intensity of their bright, glowing (almost neon) yellow.

Nevertheless I took a few photographs to try and do them justice - personally I prefer the tulip pictures, perhaps because the light and my camera settings gave a greenish hue to the daffodil shots. But hey, I'll leave it up to you to decide:

Heyyyy, whose that handsome fella in my shot?

And then (fast-forward a few weeks) there were tulips....

Tulips as far as the eye can see

Heyyy there's that bloke again.
Funny how he always follows me around :-)

This is perhaps my favourite. I also uploaded it to Flickr
and have had positive feedback.

She looks familiar - even with the wind-scragged hair.

Thought I'd go for a dutch angle on this one. Get it?
Tulips...dutch.....dutch angle? Sorry, couldn't resist.

Okay, I'll skip the terrible pun on this one.
I love that the colours and the flowers' slight movement
in the breeze give this image a painted look.

And, last but not least, a new profile image - including wild 'n' whispy hairdo, courtesy of the strong breeze.