Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival & Dog Mountain

So, the tulip festival is not really a hike...and this is a hiking blog after all, but who cares! I'm taking a huge risk to the four family members who read this blog and I have decided to post about something unrelated to hiking. If you find yourself visiting Oregon in the months of March and April, you might want to stroll around the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm near Woodburn, Oregon if you are like me and love a good tulip. This past weekend, Val and I decided to join the throngs of young families and the elderly and see what all the hype was about. My expectations were exceeded, spring is my favorite time of year and seeing all the bulbs you planted months ago finally sprout is very rewarding. So visiting a farm of this magnitude and seeing flowers everywhere...well it was overwhelming in a good way.

We also decided after eating french fries for lunch, it was best to do an aggressive hike the next day. I've posted a few pictures from our Dog Mountain hike, more details and pictures on this hike can be found earlier in this blog. Dog Mountain is always a tough hike, but manageable in about 3 hours. The rain was a nice surprise to cut down on the sweat you proliferate along the way. I will say, due to the warm winter temperatures in 2014 & 2015, the lack of freezes has produced swarms of ticks. Lola was not so lucky and we found a few on her post hike. I've heard from several people that the Gorge and Cascade Range are tick meccas, so check your furball to avoid what happened to me...There I was, driving along aimlessly and suddenly I feel a tingle on my hand. I look down to see a tick crawling up my arm, to which my first reaction was to scream then flick the tick at my significant other...who then screamed at me, "WHY WOULD YOU THROW A TICK ON ME! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!"I then spent my afternoon bathing two dogs and tirelessly cleaning the Prius...good times!