I Love Oranje

This sticker has been adorning the driver's door of "Darlene" (Nick's VW Bus) since 2000. We were in The Netherlands after dropping Nick off in Ulm, DE for a summer of German language school. The European Football Championship tournament was hosted in the Netherlands that year and everywhere you looked, the country was decked in orange. Even the fountain in a Rotterdam round-about had orange water. Since Nick has a thing for orange, we knew we had to have this sticker when we saw it in a store window. It turned out that the store was using them for decoration, not for sale, and the clerks had no idea where to obtain one. They generously gave of one of their stickers - we never saw them anywhere else in the country. It makes me smile every time I see it.

The sticker came to mind this week because of an annual "Orange Encounter" on my daily commute. There is a house along the side of Highway 180 that has a large patch of Orange Poppies. They only bloom for about 2 weeks, but they come back faithfully each spring. This year the peak for them was the last week of May, and of course I managed to forget to have the camera along in the car until this week.

Despite missing their peak time, it was wonderful to see them each day and when I stopped to photograph them I met the home owner who seemed quite happy to show off his wife's pride and joy. He said that they spread by runners and that they are quite hardy once started, but challenging to get started. I think I'll just enjoy her's instead of attempting any of my own.