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Wednesday, April 12, 2017
I had another good night's sleep. But today is starting not so good weatherwise. Much cooler and cloudier than the last three or four.
After breakfast and a short scouting mission in search of accessible tulip fields, we headed back to the Gardens. The wind is blowing badly and it's threatening to rain... I spent some time at the far end of the Gardens again and got some decent shots.
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These two photos show more of the gorgeous flower beds in the Gardens.
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I even found a themed area that I had missed in the previous two days. This was set up as an outdoor wedding chapel complete with a pink getaway scooter dragging pots of white tulips instead of old cans...
The photo on the right is another lovely daffodil, called Banana Splash.
At 9:30, we all met in the big building with masses of tulips and other bulbs in it for a short session on depth of field and super wide angle lenses. Very informative.
This lovely tulip was also found in the large greenhouse and is called Ballade Silver. I thought the streak of color in the tulip in the photo on the right was Intriguing. Little did I know that this is a sign of a virus and is not a desirable trait. We learned about this when we visited some of the tulip fields of northern Holland and talked with the farmers there....
The tulips on the left are called Blushing Lady and were in the greenhouse.
The tulips on the right are called Fire Wings and were in one of the outdoor flower beds.
As it neared our meeting time for departure, I managed to catch the costumed greeter near the entrance without a crowd around her and she posed nicely. She also handed out Garden maps for those who wanted one.
Lunch was at the casino restaurant again. I got very chilled on the way. I don't know if it was the chill or the lunch dish or the change in the weather or something else, but my stomach got pretty upset. We all went back to the hotel after lunch and I rested for a while. I felt better after the rest.
We all met up again at 3:15 for a trip to the ice cream/gelato place. That really helped the stomach. They gave us samples of a couple of their newer flavors, including banana (which they had just finished making on site) and beer!!! The beer one did taste sort of like a lager, but I don't see how anyone could eat a bowl of it - beer and ice cream really didn't go well together...
Then we all walked back to the hotel for a short session on Lightroom that wound up covering a bunch of related topics. Kevin and Angie went back to the Gardens for a short afternoon shoot while the rest of us finished with the various topics.
Dinner was a major mess. The leaders had changed the time with the restaurant. One person on staff said no problem, but the word didn't get around to some of the other staff and our table was given to some ad hoc diners and wouldn't be available for another two hours... So, we were split into two smaller groups and eventually got to eat. The place was super busy tonight.
Now it's time for a shower and bed. Tomorrow morning will be a late start and we'll move on to the next location. So part of the morning will be spent repacking everything that has jumped out of the suitcase...