It's amazing how people from all over the world even, flock to the valley for the tulips.  There are month long events and bike rides through back roads.  There is a bloom map to show which fields are in full color starting with the first of the daffodils and ending with the last of the tulips.  I started taking the kids each year to see the tulips and making a day of it.  We would tromp through the fields in our rainboots and sometimes with umbrellas, always with my camera and would buy a snack of kettle corn or McDonalds on the way home.  Sometimes we would ride the wagon out to the field or the little train barrels. We'd look at the art, the flowers, and the mud puddles.  The kids have grown and they no longer make them go with me to the fields, so I bribe my husband or go alone.  This year I convinced a friend to go with me and I was in sticker shock.  I don't ever remember paying $17! to go to the show garden before.  There would be no way that I would have paid $70 to take the kids and yet this is the price now.  So what once was almost a annual pilgrimage will change for me.  No longer entering the display gardens but content to photograph the fields that allow me to stop.