Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival

For better or worse, I rely on Instagram to give me about 90% of my ideas for places to visit (and eat) in Oregon. That was absolutely the case with the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival. Tulips galore started popping up in my feed, and there was no way I could miss out on seeing it for myself. I even pulled out my "big camera" for the occasion, which felt sadly foreign and strange after relying on my iPhone as a camera for so long. We attended the festival on a hot, sunny Sunday afternoon in mid-April, which meant the crowds were out in full-force, the tulips were a bit gangly and wind-whipped, and the lighting was a little harsh—I vastly prefer overcast days, like the good Oregonian that I am ;) But I still had fun wandering the grounds and snapping photos, while trying to avoid photobombing anyone else. Honestly, I've never seen so many people selfie-ing in one place—no judgement, I did it too!

My favorite moment was walking next to a little girl who complimented literally everyone she passed. "You have the prettiest hair!" she said to a purple-haired woman on a picnic blanket. "I like your shoes!" "Have a beautiful day!" We should all aspire to the type of kindness that little girl radiated. In fact, I'm actually kicking myself for not going up to the couple in the last photo to offer to email them a copy; I bet that would have been a nice surprise for them. So instead I'm sending gratitude to them from afar for the sweet photo.