(I hope that means "Welcome to Leavenworth." That's what it says on the signs and what we are going with. So to those of you who speak German out there, ahem, mom, please correct me if it's wrong... It seems like it, but the "in" is the part messing me up.)
We have been in Washington for 2.5 days now. Right before bed, we were lucky enough to see TWO rainbows! It made our days! Pretty sure the lady next to us was laughing, though. Last night's sleep has probably been the best camping. The train only went by once, that we can remember. We experienced our first real rains last night. It wasn't too bad, though, except we woke up kind of early, which made for a long day today. We had to hurry back and forth to the bathroom, so we wouldn't get soaked, but it was totally worth it. It was probably the best breakfast we had all trip! Can't wait for tomorrow's!! After our oatmeal (bananas foster, yum!), we packed up our soaking wet tent, which is obviously not a good idea, but it had to be done. Our plan for today was to head to Leavenworth, which is right in the middle of the state.
It's about 4 hours from Spokane, so probably another five or so to the coast (that's tomorrow's trip!) It is amazing what different areas you find here. We passed through wheat fields, apple orchards, mountains, and then just miles of nothing. Parts of the drive looked like South Dakota and parts looked like Montana. There are little towns and then bigger cities. We passed through Grant County, which tags itself as "The World's Largest Potato Producing County". Who knew? It's not even that close to Idaho... Although the farms out here do look like the farms in Farmville. Probably the highlight of the drive was the town of George. Yes, George, Washington. We saw the sign, at first, didn't think anything of it, and then put it together. So, we took a detour and drove through it. Not much to look at. It is apparently a very Hispanic town, with many signs in English and Spanish. There is a huge bust of George Washington welcoming you to town. It took all of three minutes to drive through the entire town. Back on the highway, we passed through more farmland. At around noon, we got to Leavenworth. It's a very small town, who's claim to fame is that it is a little Bavarian village. Everything here is decorated like a village in the Alps (or, a least what I imagine it would look like), complete with huge mountains in the background. There are a bunch of specialty shops and hotels, along with banks, their post office, and what kind of Washington town would it be without a Starbucks?! The town's Ambassador is Woody Goomsba. His profession? Nutcracker. They have an entire museum dedicated to nutcrackers. Over 5,000 of them! We spent a few hours walking up and down the street. We were going to get a cuckoo clock, but decided against it for now. But we do know which one we will get for the kitchen!There was even an accordion-playing yodeller in the Town Center today.
After that, we went to set up our campsite. What a disappointment. Don't get me wrong, the camp itself is nice, but not our area. There is a lot to do there, but none of it was open today. First, we had to wait for the guy driving the golf cart to come "escort" us to our site. He never came. Luckily, it's not too hard to follow the map, so we were able to find it. We got there and the entire area is set on rocks and hard soil. It is IMPOSSIBLE to get our tent stakes in the ground. Which means that it is impossible to get our rain fly in the ground, so we are hoping that it doesn't rain tonight. It would be nice to sleep under the stars, though. Somehow the people next to us got theirs in, though... We took a nap and finished setting up. We decided to head back into town to charge everything up, which means that we are at Starbucks, of course! We were going to go to the Gingerbread Factory, but they, too, are closed. We may stop by tomorrow morning before we leave, unless we wake up wicked early again!
It's off to Port Angeles tomorrow, out on the Olympic Peninsula, and for our Twilight fans out there, maybe Bella Italia for dinner?? And, I promise, we are going to put up some more pictures today, since we have plenty of time tonight!!
Life is a Highway (Pictures)
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