Let me take you down … to the sea side town of Anacortes in upper Washington State.

There my daughter and I took a small plane excursion with our cousin Mark, a fully licensed captain, who flies for a major air line.

We met him at the small runway; crawled into the single engine, four seater Cessna prop plane; put on our radio headphones; whispered a few Hail Mary’s; and were off!

We took off over the ocean then did a U turn back toward land. We flew over one of the largest eddies in the country underneath this bridge where the Pacific narrows between two landmasses, then saw these squares of yellow ahead and below.

They were fields of daffodils. Washington State is a big area for bulbs…daffodils being a major type grown.   In a few weeks the Tulip Festival would begins where fields of tulip fill up 100’s of acres of land.

After the daffodil fields we climbed up to 11,000 feet to the summit of Mt. Baker.  This is an active volcano due for an explosion.  We could see multiple glaciers and indentations where the lava had run.

We headed back toward the sea over the Cascade Mounting range did an angled tilt about 20 feet from a line of mountains (yikes!) and then headed to the San Juan Islands about 30 minutes away.    This area of Washington is one of the few places in the world where you can fly over snow and then warm oceans within less than an hour of each other.

At the San Juan Islands, we flew so low over the water that we were level to the second story windows of the houses.  Mark made two touch and go landings before we settled down on a larger island. We parked the plane on an empty short ‘runway’, and walked to dinner.

The next day, my daughter and I drove past row after row of the yellow flowers.  We talked, giggled and shook our heads remembering all of our views from above as well as these …daffodil fields forever.

Christie lives in Manakin Sabot , Virginia where she manages a 3 acre garden. Her blogs are written from her 35 years as a personal and professional gardener.