A weekend without the children...

~Erica

Last week Ryan took me to Leavenworth for my birthday. We had been there 17 years ago with Nathan and Taryn but it was winter and cold and long time ago. We made a serious road trip of it- we took Stevens Pass up to Leavenworth then came home over Blewett Pass through Ellensburg and Yakima and over White Pass. It was a very long roller coaster ride that took 2 days. There were fires burning in Cashmere and Stehekin so the air was very hazy.

Leavenworth is quaint, kitschy, touristy but pretty cool. It was converted to a Bavarianesque village in the 60s when the logging first started drying up. They did a pretty good job of the buildings on main street and now its all covenanted so everything has to be built to specs.  I think there are 2 officials fonts for signs- I got a kick out of how they got National chains to comply. I didn't get a picture but McDonalds did not change their Golden Arches M but the building looks like a chalet. The main attraction is shopping and I think my shopping gene has withered and died. There is hiking and water sports but since we were there without the kids we were "relaxing." We might try and go back next year and rent kayaks for the Wenatchee River.

Thursday afternoon we had a terrific rain storm, I heard some thunder but didn't see any lightning and didn't hear that any more fires had started. It cleaned the air a bit however the humidity went up. We went to the Brau Haus for dinner and ate bratwurst. They had a German sauce (that's what they called it) that was red and slightly sweet with some curry. It was great and I would have brought home a big bottle if we had found it in the stores. The air seemed brighter so we took a few more pictures and got to go to the Farmers Market that is open in the evenings.

Friday we went into Cashmere and did the Aplets & Cotlets tour. The only thing we bought was some Aplets & Cotlets to bring home to share with the kids.

Downtown Cashmere

We had lunch in Yakima before coming over White Pass.

We saw the helicopter filling up from the lake at the top of White Pass, I'm not sure where it was taking the water as there weren't any reported fires in our area of the state.

I tried taking this picture of Mt. Rainier as we drove down the pass. It was the first time we'd seen it all weekend- the sky was so hazy in Eastern Washington that we couldn't see past the foothills. I just about got carsick trying to look through the viewfinder as we drove.

In Morton we stopped at Spiffy's for ice cream- the kids like to stop there on Boy Scout outings so we thought we'd give it a try. We went to the new Centralia Deli for dinner (Ryan wanted BBQ). I was ready to go home but Ryan said we couldn't go home for another hour....


We got home to a house full of guests who came for cake