600,000 and 1 Daffodils!

Meriden's "Daffodil Festival" celebrated its 31st year this year and it has been the best weekend in about 20 of those years. I can honestly say I used to dread going to the Daffodil Festival in Hubbard Park every year because it was always freezing or raining or both. According to the website, there are 61 varieties of Daffodils and every year they add more and more to the 1800 acres of land. This year the grand total is 600,001 daffodils. With food, crafts, home, and healthcare vendors as well as enertainment, amusement rides, of course tons of nature, the festival sparks the interest of the young and old. They even have a parade *which I missed yesterday* that crowns a "Miss Daffodil and Honor Escort". This is essentially a boy and girl from each of the elementary schools in Meriden. Although it is a beautiful festival and the hot dogs were delicious, I must say the sun is overwhelming. At one point, I helped my mother work at her healthcare tent, and I had to walk around just to get some air. Being enclosed around a tent is even worse than being out in the sun walking the park. Also, although the festival is amazing on many levels, the parking is not! You must take a shuttle bus from various parking spots just to get over to the park. Overall, I highly recommend it if you see this post before it closes tonight at 5pm tonight. I plan on editing this post tomorrow once I get the number of total visitors. It'll be interesting to see the increase in numbers because of the glorious weather.