Amity Daffodil Festival features great walks

March 31, 6:18 AMPortland Walking ExaminerWendy Bumgardner

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The Amity Daffodil Festival, April 4, 2009 is one of my favorite local festivals.  It is produced by the Hospitality, Tourism and Recreation class of Amity High School and features not only a great walk with multiple distance options, but also a daffodil show and daffodil-oriented art show. The buffet lunch is fabulous, with entrees of lemon chicken and bbq pulled pork.

The walk is a non-competitive volkssport walk hosted by the Mac Trackers volkssport club.  The cost is free or optional $3 for IVV volkssport credit.  Walk at your own pace.  You can sign up for the walk from 8 am to 1 pm both Saturday and Sunday, although the other Daffodil Festival events take place only on Saturday.

You can choose a walk of various lengths.  The shortest is a 6K walk, with a shuttle starting at 9 am to take you to the top of a hill with a grand view of the area and some small daffodil fields.  Then walk down through this farming country back through the town of Amity.  Walks of 10K (out and back up the hill) 12K, and 15K are also available.

What I enjoy about this event:

• I love walking through the countryside on quiet country roads.  It's a great way to reconnect with the land each spring.  But one caveat, there aren't huge fields of daffodils like the tulips in Monitor, just a couple of nice plots of them.
• The school is ablaze with daffodil art projects by all of the elementary school classes.  It is great fun to walk the hallways and enjoy them.
• The Daffodil Show has an amazing variety of daffodils and I also usually stock up on local honey from Ray Bee's Honey.
• I find myself bursting into a song we sang in grade school about Daffy daffy dilly.  I cannot locate this song or lyrics anywhere on the web.  "Early this morning, I saw daffy daffy dilly.  He had on a cap and a collar of yellow..."
• The buffet is really great, well worth the line-up to get a seat!
• You can also visit the winery just above town.

The walk and festival are held at Amity Elementary School, 300 Rice Lane Amity, OR 97101.  On Saturday, walkers are asked to park at the High School and walk or shuttle to the Elementary School several blocks away, to leave the limited parking around that building to other festival-goers.

Amity is located 7 miles South of McMinnville on 99W. From Portland, it is 45 miles South on 99W. You may bypass McMinnville, by taking Hwy 18, towards Oregon Coast, then Hwy 233 which will connect to Hwy 99W. From Salem, take Hwy 22 to Rickreall, then North 11 miles on 99W.