Loving the Lavender: Another Sequim Lavender Weekend wraps up
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Lavender is in ice cream. It’s in lemonade. People can always find it in soap, sachets, and lotions. Stuffed bears and bunnies are filled with it. Street corners still have it popping out every block. It was even a topic of discussion in some church sermons.
Love it or avoid it, Sequim’s lavender continues to define the community for at least one weekend.
See more photos from the weekend here.
After weeks of gloomy weather, blue skies parted for Sequim Lavender Weekend July 19-21 for dozens of events. Newcomers to Sequim’s lavender scene flocked to the fields like Gio Smaldino of Vancouver, B.C. who biked all the way here to see old friends. He fit right in at Purple Haze Lavender in his Jimi Hendrix T-shirt, purple shoes and lavender wreath worn as a hat.
Swati and Shekhar Joshi of Bellevue found Meli’s Lavender Farm after taking a wrong turn into town.
“We took a wrong turn but it turned out to be right, and we went down to the John Wayne Marina. It was so beautiful,” Swati Joshi said.
Amanda Lin and August Ongasuwan of Seattle returned to multiple lavender farms this year including Graysmarsh Farm but this time with a baby in tow.
“We wanted to do a maternity shoot,” Ongasuwan said.
Lin is about one month away from giving birth to a boy.
A few rows over, Sequim’s Michelle Morfeld went to Graysmarsh with her 8-and-a-half-month old baby Ivory and friend Alicia Walz.
“We normally come for berries, but we saw some a great photo-ops,” she said.
Feedback
From events in the city like the opening of the Sequim Lavender Festival’s Street Fair to farms opening in Dungeness like Jardin du Solei and Olympic Lavender Company’s combined festivals, consensus seemed things went smoothly.
Christa Hermosillo, co-owner of Olympic Lavender Company, said their weekend went great.
“The whole weekend was awesome,” she said.
“Everything was so smooth with no stress.”
Even with careful planning, lavender ice cream fans stormed their farm causing them to run out on Saturday, Hermosillo said.
Owners doubled their order from the previous year, she said, so they’ll likely need to triple their order for 2020.
Sequim’s Communications and Marketing Director Barbara Hanna said from the city’s perspective everything went smoothly.
“All of the events were well attended and we didn’t receive reports about any problems,” she said.
This year, 1,748 riders used the In-City Shuttle Bus over the weekend, Hanna said, which is almost triple from 2018.
“Everybody just seemed to be having a great time at all of the venues, so it’s a huge success from our point-of-view.”
Back-up and chase
Another tradition for travelers on Sequim Lavender Weekend is the traffic back-up whether coming or going into Sequim depending on the time of day.
Trooper Chelsea Hodgson with Washington State Patrol reported on Saturday that troopers had to direct traffic all the way to the Hood Canal Bridge to help prevent massive backups coming to the Olympic Peninsula.
U.S. Highway 101 began backing up around the Clallam/Jefferson County line, she reported.
Lavender Weekend isn’t normally known for its speed, but an Oregon motorcyclist was chased starting west of Sequim.
Washington State Patrol reported a trooper attempted to pull over 38-year-old Joshua Robert Kay about six miles west of Sequim going 76 mph in a 55 mph zone. Kay allegedly eluded troopers going in and out of traffic, but a trooper flying a Cessna 206 following traffic conditions for the weekend followed Kay into five counties — Clallam, Jefferson, Mason, Thurston and Pierce — before he was eventually arrested after fleeing his bike from Steilacoom police officers. The Peninsula Daily News reported Kay was booked into the Clallam County jail at 2:25 a.m. Sunday for investigation of eluding a police vehicle, reckless driving and driving with a suspended license.
Aside from the chase, Hodgson said over the weekend there were three DUI arrests with two in Clallam County and one in Jefferson County, 12 erratic driver calls in Clallam County and 7 collisions (four in Port Angeles and three in Jefferson County).
The fun’s not over
While Lavender Weekend is over and resumes the third weekend of July 2020, many farms remain open for the summer
Hermosillo said they’ll continue to harvest their lavender for many weeks to come for various products.
Coming up this weekend at Washington Lavender is Hymn Sing by the Sea on July 27. Read more about it at www.washingtonlavender.com. That’s followed by the Jungible Music Series at Jardin du Soleil.
The True Loves play Aug. 2, Worlds Finest on Aug. 9, and Luau Cinder on Aug. 16. Find more information at www.jungiblefestival.com.
The Tour de Lavender bike ride travels to local lavender farms too on Aug. 3. Sign up at tourdelavender.org.
For more information on all the lavender farms and happenings, go to www.sequimlavenderweekend.com.
Reach Matthew Nash at mnash@sequimgazette.com.
