Roadtrip Rationale: Daffodil Festival

Festival season is starting, and that's Seattlest's favorite time of year. Elephant ears, funnel cakes, deep fried twinkies, strawberry shortcake, and any number of more savory foods abound, and then there's whatever the festival is actually celebrating. Our neighbors to the south in Tacoma, Puyallup, Sumner, and Orting are having their annual Daffodil Festival this weekend, which looks to provide an interesting mix of activities outside of the flower-gazing.

The highlight of the weekend is Saturday's parade, travelling through each of the four cities, united under the theme of "Daffodil Delights." We're thinking there are going to be a lot of flowers involved. Tacoma is adding "Cruz-In," a Northwest Mustang Clubs exhibition of special model Ford Mustangs, as a parade prefix (it's pretty safe to assume there won't be any ghost riding). Post-parade, there's the Spring Fair in Puyallup to keep you occupied, along with the Tacoma Jazz and Blues Festival.

Sunday the festivities continue, most notably with the Orting Pancake Breakfast, an all-you-can-eat affair featuring a whole bunch of food you don't have to cook yourselves (it's a benefit for the Orting Cooperative Nursery School). The rest of the day continues with the Daffodil Classic Bike Ride to burn off those breakfast calories and the Daffodil Marine Regatta, which is just a fancy way of saying "a parade with boats." That means they've got land and sea covered, and they just need to work on incorporating air to fill out the trifecta. Even without that, this is looking like a good excursion to fill the weekend and see what Pierce County has to offer.

73rd Annual Daffodil Festival
April 22-23, 2006
Various Locations, see website for details