Bluebonnets, bluebonnets, bonnets oh so blue

When we were driving through Texas on the way to Magnolia, AR, I kept noticing big patches of dark blue flowers growing by the roadside:

like this. They were so dense and so pretty, and they looked kind of like lupines—but so much thicker and more compact than any I've seen growing in the mountains in Utah. I had a vague feeling they must be bluebells…Texas bluebells, was that a thing? Somewhere in my distant memory was a Facebook post from someone I knew in Texas saying "it's bluebell time again." I searched around online and found my memory had been not quite accurate—these were Texas bluebonnets, the state flower of Texas. And their peak bloom time was…now! The first few weeks of April! 

In the course of my searches I found that Ennis, Texas was the "official bluebonnet city of Texas" and hosted a Bluebonnet Festival every year. It was starting in a few days and the city was about an hour south of Quinlan where we'd be staying. I immediately started thinking about how we could find time to go there! This is just the type of place I love to visit most!

We didn't have much free time, and I wasn't sure that it was the type of activity everyone else would like most, so Sam and I just planned on getting up early Saturday morning and driving down to Ennis while everyone else slept in. Seb said he wanted to go too, but he didn't wake up when Sam shook him that morning, so we went without him (I still feel bad about that—should've tried again). But Teddy woke up, along with Gus and Clementine, so we loaded them in the car and went. We were going to meet my brother Kenneth there (he and his family were in Texas for the eclipse too, staying south of Ennis) but they decided they would rather lie abed instead of rise with the dawn like productive citizens. Or possibly they weren't even in Texas as they claimed to be. I certainly never saw them.

There was an app ("Ennis, Ya'll") with a map of all the best bluebonnet spots, and we had so much fun driving around to find them!

Some of them were at city parks, which was lovely because you could get out and wander around among the flowers. I love this little bluebonnet bunny!

I think the orange/red flowers are paintbrush

See how lupine-like they are? They are a type of lupine, in fact. But they have little white hats above their blue gowns. Maybe they should be called "whitebonnets." I love them!

Teddy, glasses-less

After we'd looked around at the parks, we followed the map of "bluebonnet trails" on roads and highways around Ennis. This was my favorite part because the bluebonnet fields were so vast! Some of them stretched off all the way to the horizon! They just grow wild, no one plants them. And you never know where they're going to come up most abundantly because it depends on…I don't know, rainfall amount, temperature, rainfall timing. Most of them were just growing on farms and fields meant for other things. Wouldn't it be amazing to look outside your front door and see this?!

A whole world of bluebonnets!

I liked these mixed fields of orange and blue too

It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been! I wish we could have stayed longer and driven all the roads…but we had to get back to General Conference and the other kids!