Easter on the Bluebell Trail

Jaclyn

Apr 19

Visiting Bull Run Park and hiking the Bluebell Trail is one of our favorite, can't-miss, spring traditions. (Shoutout to Only In Your State and Facebook clickbait for first alerting me to this total treasure!) The Virginia bluebells bloom every year in early to mid-April, and they can be found growing in parks all around northern Virginia - but I don't think there's a park anywhere that can rival Bull Run Regional Park for sheer proliferation and glory. (And because someone always comments - these are Virginia bluebells; I am aware that they are not the same bluebells that grow in England. Different flower. I didn't make up the name, okay? It's just what we ungrateful colonials call them.)

This year, the bluebells' peak coincided perfectly with Easter Sunday, and since I am always happiest in the church of the great outdoors, it seemed like the perfect holiday activity.

I think we might have actually been a day or two past peak, but you really couldn't tell. It was a riot of blue all over the forest floor, on both banks of the great Bull Run.

Because it was also Easter, the park had set up an "Egg Scavenger Hunt" all along the trail, with huge wooden cutouts painted in seasonal designs. More organized families were coloring in the eggs on an official form. We just took pictures. (And got to go home without two extra pieces of paper...)

There were also signs with bunny-themed jokes. Nugget especially appreciated this sports-themed groaner...

Every year, when we hike this trail, it's a muddy, sloppy mess. This year I was organized and packed both the kids' wellies and my own. And then of course Nugget had outgrown his boots and the trail was perfectly dry anyway. At least my feet looked cute.

Growing by the entrance to the trail - before the bluebells in all their glory - was another treat: a forest floor studded with violets. I don't remember seeing violets on this trail before - white starflowers, yes, but violets, no. Violets always remind me of my grandmother and the flower walks we used to take together; there was one stretch that we named "Violet Vale" in honor of our mutual favorite book, Anne of Green Gables. I think that Grandmother leaves me little signs and gifts, and this definitely felt like one: