When I wrote my journal entry for yesterday, I didn’t think through my topic very well. I should have known that writing about tulip festival would not do justice to the event. Just as writing about cheese does not compare to the experience of eating cheese, writing about tulip festival without pictures leaves much to be desired. So, I am including pictures with today’s entry.

Over the course of a lifetime, I have had many really good days. I have been blessed to be with couples celebrating their marriages, with families bringing their children for baptism, with a community celebrating the lives of beloved people, and with congregations engaging in hands on mission and service. I have been blessed to travel to interesting and beautiful places. I’ve hiked up mountains to reveal incredible vistas, I’ve walked along the shores of lakes, rivers, and oceans. I’ve witnessed the miracle of the birth of a baby and held the hand of an elder as death came. I’ve been given the treasure of a life partner who has walked beside me, led me, and traveled with me for over five decades and who still enjoys new adventures. I’ve watched our children grow into adulthood and become parents themselves. I’ve held five grandchildren and witnessed their growth and exploration of the world. There have been many really good days.

Yesterday was a really good day. After breakfast, we were greeted by sunny skies as we drove an hour to the Skagit valley and into the tulip fields. We had plenty of time to walk at our own pace. I had my cameras and some good lenses to photograph the flowers in my own way, taking my time, focusing on individual blossoms and huge bright-colored fields. I looked at drops of water through my camera and experimented with focus, depth of field, exposure and light. There were enough clouds in the sky to soften the light and make for brilliant color photography, but there was no rain. The sun made its appearance enough to warm us as we strolled at our own pace. There were quite a few other people enjoying the views, but a weekday morning was not the height of crowds, so parking was no problem and we didn’t feel pressure from other viewers to move at a particular pace through the blossoms.

After we walked through the fields, we took a leisurely drive through the festival route, viewing additional tulip farms with their fields of brilliant color before crossing back across the river. We had time to take a stroll along the river where we enjoyed many pleasant walks during the year that we lived in Mount Vernon before walking to the library, where we met our son for lunch.

After lunch, our son’s next appointment was to take part of the library staff on a walk through the first floor of the new library building under construction. We were able to tag along on the tour, donning safety vests, hard hats and safety glasses with the staff members and following them as they looked at the areas that will become their new offices, staff rooms, and work areas as well as the locations of the children’s library, youth spaces, adult book stacks, quiet rooms, conference rooms, commercial kitchen and service areas. We marveled at the natural light from the tall windows that are in the new building and the incredible quiet inside. Even though there is a busy street right next to the library, we could not hear the cars as they passed by. The building is designed and being constructed to passive house standards which is several times more efficient than LEED certification.

We tried to comprehend the impact on the community of a new public space that will provide a host of services to the community and is being constructed to last for a century or more. Our tour-guide son explained the impact of the massive solar arrays that will generate all of the electric demands of the new spaces in the building, including the large commercial kitchen. The building will also be supplied with electricity from the grid and a supplemental generator system as in addition to the building needs, there will be 78 electric vehicle charging stations with capacity to expand EV charging in the future. One way that the amount of electricity generated by the solar panels on the building is that it would be enough to keep all of the cell phones of the city charged every day.

I know that hubris is a vice and not a virtue, but I could not help but swell with pride as I followed our son around the tour. He has participated in the vision for this building, written grant application after grant application, planned and figured out how to create this massive public works project without the need of raising taxes, either for the construction or the operation of this new facility. Once in my career, I served a congregation that was able to make a significant expansion of their property and add additional space to their building. Another time, I helped lead a capital funds drive that provided over a half million dollars for ministry. Our son is leading a 53 million dollar construction project. Over five million of that expense is being spent directly in the small town where the library is located with an additional 15 million going into the economy of the county just from the construction. I don’t even know how to think in those terms. I dealt with thousands of dollars. He helps to manage millions as their community re-envisions what a library can be and how it can serve a community long into the future.

After the tour we still had time for a leisurely drive along the beautiful route back up to our bayside home, pack a sack lunch and head to the church for an exciting and fun-filled meeting where we put the finishing touches on plans for a major event being held at our church on April 20. The members of our team have become close friends as we have worked together over the past year. It is good to know that I can still make new friends in my seventh decade.

But enough words. You probably came for the pictures. I hope they give you some images of what a very good day can bring.