4 Best Sights in La Conner, Washington Cascade Mountains and Valleys

The Roozen family and Washington Bulb Company established this 1,200-acre estate in Mount Vernon in 1985—it's the world's largest family-owned tulip-, daffodil-, and iris-growing business. Sixteen acres of greenhouses are filled with multicolored blossoms, and more than 200,000 bulbs are planted in the show gardens each fall. The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, held in April, is the main event, when the flowers pop up in neat, brilliant rows across the flat land, attracting thousands of sightseers. The garden and store are open year-round, and the staff is full of helpful advice for both novice and experienced gardeners. RoozenGarde is 6 miles east of La Conner. 

This striking, modern building contains some 2,500 works produced by regional creative minds past and present, including painters, sculptors, photographers, and other artists. Soaring spaces, circular exhibit rooms, a glass gallery, and a broad spiral staircase add to the free-form feeling of the displays. There's a small but impressive gallery shop.

One of only a handful of fiber arts museums in the country is housed throughout three floors of the Queen Anne–style Gaches Mansion, which rises grandly over La Conner's downtown. Exhibits change throughout the year and feature both contemporary and historic quilts, wall hangings, and other textiles, most of them created in the Pacific Northwest. The lovingly restored mansion itself makes for an interesting tour, and there's a well-curated museum shop.

This hilltop museum surveys domestic life in early Skagit County and Northwest Coastal Native American history. There's an interesting gallery showcasing goods commonly found in the region's early general stores, and rotating exhibits interpret the different aspects of the community's rich heritage.