Anniversary getaway

Ninety minutes from Portland is a big garden + forest + wetland called The Oregon Garden. D and I spent a weekend here to celebrate our 2-year wedding anniversary. ♡ We stayed at the Oregon Garden Resort, which has a gate that opens directly into the garden. This lets you wander the garden whenever you want without paying any admission fee.

The garden covers 80 acres. Right now, that translates to about 2 long walks, since much of the garden is still dormant. My favorite areas were the oak grove- a massive 400-year-old oak grows there- and the secret garden.

Conifer Garden

The resort itself is pretty cool as well. The rooms are located in big cottages- ours was called Jasmine- and each room has its own fireplace and balcony. There was a break in rain that weekend (!), so we took some cheap champagne out on the balcony and watched the sun set.

The next day, we headed north to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm. 

The tulip festival was the exact opposite of the garden: loud, crowded, colorful, and muddy.

Antique machines crawled through the fields as people queued for cotton candy.  The windmill near the entrance was the backdrop to a thousand selfies that day.

In a big tent next to the windmill, you could buy freshly-cut tulips and sample the local wine. Way off in the distance, Mt Hood stood out against the gray skies. There was a photo-op bridge at the very back of the fields. It took about 15 minutes of slowly shuffling forward in line until we made it up on the bridge. But what a cool view, right?

At the other end of the bridge was this cute photo op. I guess we should have asked someone to get our picture here...

A friend in Seattle has shared pictures of tulip farms in her area over the past few years. I always thought it looked so amazing! Going to one in real life was even better. Until last year, we'd totally ignored the farms here. It turns out Oregon farms open to the public seasonly (think tulips, lavender, berries, pumpkins) and some farms even let you spend the night. 

This particular tulip festival extended its season an extra week this year. When we were there, some flowers still hadn't bloomed.

And THE COLORS and shapes! Soooo many! 

I especially liked dark purple tulips, since they were such a rare contrast to all the red, yellow, and pink.

Last weekend, you could get a (tethered) hot air balloon ride at this farm for $10. Imagine what the fields would look like from that height!

So, instead of getting a bouquet of flowers for this anniversary, it was a weekend of a thousand flowers. :) Я тебя очень люблю, дорогой Денис!


How do you like to celebrate your special occasions?




PS: There was once this spring tulip sale in Kharkiv...