Leavenworth, Washington (Not Kansas)

Leavenworth is on the eastern slope of Washington’s Cascade Range.   It is Washington's equivalent of Solvang, CA, only larger.  In the 1960s, when the local economy took a nose dive; locals felt the need to drum up tourist business beyond what came from the typically frugal backpackers heading up Icicle Creek.  So the logging town began its transformation into a little Bavaria!  The Cascades were a pretty good stand-in for the Alps, and the makeover was successful, even though it is obviously faux alpine, the half-timbered buildings, painted flower boxes, carved wooden beams, and gabled roofs are quite realistic, even charming.  You can even sometimes spot people in dirndl and lederhosen and hear polka music. Schnitzel and strudel are available in many places.  We are hoping to find some good sausage (there goes the diet!) and Mike is dreaming of a good dark beer.

We were fortunate in finding parking right in front of the Leavenworth Sausage Garten where they make a lot of Italian and Bavarian items, giving samples to taste.    

Cheers

Mike sampled two dark beers at Icicle Brewery and bought one that he liked best.  We sat outside in the shade to drink it. They don’t sell 6-packs, only a larger bottle, so he’ll have to remember the taste. 

For lunch we had Sauerbraten and Rouladen at King Ludwig’s Restaurant.  It was very disappointing as the sauerbraten didn’t have raisins and was pretty bland and the rouladen was dry and had very little pickle rolled inside.  Judy's Oma's and Mom’s were much better. 

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Preparing for a water drop

The sky was extremely smoky.  The staging area for fighting this forest fire is in Leavenworth right down the road from the campground we are calling ‘home’ for a few days!  We heard the firefighters were going to start a back-fire to help get a hold on the fire.  It is near here, but we don’t exactly know where.  We wish them luck. 

  

Pretty Smoky

            

It was a very hot day and we did our walking up and down the streets wearing our Tilley hats and sun-shirts to protect ourselves.

The next day we took a drive on Icicle Road. In 20 miles there were supposed to be several different sites that were worth seeing. The road curved and followed the river and we were able to stop and take pictures of a beautiful area where the water was rushing over rocks.  There was a big display board by the side of the road at one point with fire information, so we stopped to look at it.  It showed where the fire started, where they have bulldozed, where the helicopter areas were, and much, much more. After about 8 miles on the road (which wasn’t a county road!) it became a miserable single lane gravel road and we both decided we should just turn around and avoid damage to the truck and ‘who knows what else’!