It was time!  We made the trip last year to McKee-Beshers for the sunflowers but we were two weeks to early.  We were still working stiffs then and simply couldn't break away to revisit.  We're retired now and could time our visit to coincide with the season.  In addition, we could watch the weather and make the trip during the week.

We wanted to arrive early in the day before the mid day heat settled in so we booked a room in Germantown Maryland on a Sunday night which put us 20 minutes or so away from McKee-Beshers.  We arrived around 9am and stayed a couple hours which worked out perfect for us.  Things were pretty "steamy" by the time we decided to leave.  Both of us were getting soaked with sweat but a bottle of water and some ice cream at the country store up the road did the trick before starting the 3 hour drive home.

Initially we thought we wouldn't venture into the field because there was a LOT of bee activity.  In fact, we could hear buzzing the entire time we were there but, fortunately, the bees seemed more interested in the sunflowers than a couple juicy people.  Thank goodness.

There were 4-5 other photographers on site but the field was big enough so there wasn't any problem getting into each others way.  When we packed the car we had considered bringing along a ladder but the flowers are much shorter than expected.  The biggest of them were chest high.  Obviously they were planted by machine because there was plenty of room between the rows to get around and for setting up a tripod.