Leavenworth

Paw Paw and Nana headed out early this morning for the airport and we packed up to leave too.  I had read about a cute little town in the Cascade mountains called Leavenworth and so we booked a two-night mini vacation for this February break. 

Leavenworth used to be a logging town, but in the 1960's, with the market sagging, it reinvented itself as a Bavarian haven complete with sleigh rides, brats, beer and costumed maidens.  It's a three hour car ride from our house over the "Snoqualmie Pass" and through some potentially hazardous roads.  We got prepared by buying chains for our tires and packing extra food and blankets.  This, it turned out, was unneccessary since the roads were perfectly dry.

We rolled into Leavenworth about mid-afternoon and first headed to a park to stretch our legs and give the dog a time to run around. 

Emmy, my warm-blooded child, who won't keep a coat on!

After some exercise, we walked around the downtown strip of Leavenworth.  It was very cute and quaint with all the shops and hotels (and even McDonald's) built with Bavarian architecture.

As you can see, the mountains behind had snow, but unfortunately, the town had barely any.  Yes, the winter wonderland we had anticipated was not there.  In fact, the lady in the visitor's center said they hadn't had snow since December.

So after visiting all the shops, we headed over to a neighboring town, Wenatchee, to our hotel.  The drive there was through some interesting topography.  I couldn't decide if the hills had all been logged so there were no trees left or if it was the way this area was.  Turns out this is called "high desert" and there were no trees to begin with.

Wenatchee is the "Apple Capital of the World" so there were thousands and thousands of apple trees planted in the valley.  Apple trees are kind of creepy when they don't have leaves - like something you'd see in Hansel and Gretel when they're walking through the forest - but I'm sure they're beautiful in a month or two when the blossoms come on!

The kids thoroughly enjoyed the hotel, mainly because there was a pool and hot tub, and our dinner out for more Mexican and movie night.  Sometimes kids are so easy to please, aren't they?  Stevie and I decided, though, that we'd change plans and head back home tomorrow.  Sometimes the best laid plans just need to be tweaked.