Leavenworth
Nov. 3rd, 2006 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weaselmomLast weekend S and I went to Leavenworth on Sunday and Monday to do a little geocaching and just get away for a bit. (For those who don't know, Leavenworth is a wonderful, if kitschy, little town that has completely remade itself as a Bavarianish Village. It's about 120 miles northeast of Seattle. I'm not sure how long it takes to get there because we've never done it without making a bunch of stops.) This was also supposed to be our annual foliage drive to go check out the fall colors. We had wanted to go a few weeks earlier for prime color but just couldn't make it happen. I won't pretend that our color is as impressive as New England's, but it's still gorgeously flaming and golden at the right time. Fall is a busy time for the town, what with the Autumn Leaf Festival and a couple of weekends of Oktoberfest. Our trip fell on a rare quiet weekend, as the town catches its breath before gearing up for Christkindlmarkt at Thanksgiving and then the Lighting Festivals in December. We got the lodgings we wanted and had plenty of elbow room while wandering around the shops.
Got an early (for us - 8:45 a.m.) start on the road, our list of 20 caches in hand. We headed east on Highway 2 which runs from Monroe over Stevens Pass to Leavenworth. It was raining, but we steadily checked off the caches on our list until we headed up Stevens - at which point the rain turned to snow. I was in no way prepared for this, and I got quite scared as we hydroplaned a bit in the slush. I was worried not only about us (what with there being a sheer drop off one side of the road) but also about Shawn's beautiful truck. But he's an excellent driver, and we made it up, over, and down the other side with no problems. Caching in the snow is an interesting, if chilly, experience.
Soon the snow turned back to rain as we headed farther east. (What we didn't know at the time was that Stevens would be closed off and on, and Snoqualmie Pass closed as well, as a result of this sudden snow.) Caching in the rain is every bit as much non-fun as it sounds, so usually I just scrawled illegibly in the logbook and rabbited back to the car. We had 99 caches when we started, and our official "100th cache" was an anticlimactic micro on the side of the road in Monroe, so I wrote up "When Midnight Falls Upon the Castle" as our 100th in the Web log. It has a nice ring, doesn't it? It was about a mile hike along the river to a place with a big slab of rock overhanging a mysterious cave! Could it be a dragon's cave? We didn't go in, but it was a very cool place. The cache was not in the cave (because it wouldn't be allowed for safety reasons) but it still took us about 20 minutes to find because the hint was inconclusive. Our usual dynamic in situations like this is I give up fairly quickly but Shawn perseveres. I had read the hint to him a hundred times, but he asked me to read it one more time. This time we reinterpreted it literally and finally made the grab.
When we rolled into Leavenworth in the late afternoon, the sun had come out. I don't think I've ever experienced bad weather in this place! We checked into our suite at Hotel Anna, with a king-size bed and a parlor with a fireplace and jacuzzi tub. I'm simply dotty on the subject of tubs, and that's what sold the suite to me - the tub in a separate room with the fireplace. We had dinner of sauerbraten and beer at Mad King Ludwig's, which is by no means the best German food in the area, but it was familiar and we were a little grubby from caching, so I didn't want to go to one of the nicer restaurants. At least they had gluhwein (hot spiced wine), which is another thing I'm dotty about. The village rolls up the sidewalks at about 8 on Sunday, so we headed back to the room with nothing to do except loll around in the jacuzzi in front of the fire for several hours. Pity us.
Not only did the snow in the passes catch everybody by surprise, but apparently the whole region dropped into unseasonably cold temperatures! All the townspeople were talking about the weather. Monday was crystal clear and utterly beautiful and shockingly (for October) cold. I did a bit of shopping, picking up a few pendants (a snowflake and an acorn) and three starter bracelets so I can finally begin to make the charm bracelets I've been trying to get going on for months. The unexpected cold necessitated a quick purchase of gloves for me so we could finish our caching that day, schlepping around the lovely riverside park called Blackbird Island. The island is positively infested with leafy trees, and during autumn most of the ground is completely covered in fallen leaves. I felt a little dizzy just trying to walk because I couldn't see the terrain (slight hills or dips, sticks, rocks, etc.) against the featureless, dazzling gold. We met a couple of sweet dogs, including a black lab puppy who wrapped himself around my legs and cried with delight while I petted and fussed him. We also followed another geocaching couple around the island, eventually meeting up at a cache. Finally, we were snubbed by a blue heron who clearly didn't appreciate being gawked at when he was trying to fish.
We headed for home at about 5 p.m., which put us in Monroe too late to visit the Serpentarium. Like many people, I'm both terrified of and fascinated by snakes, so I like to stop by here and give myself a total case of the willies. I highly recommend it to anybody heading through the area. It's a very educational experience, and they take their responsibilities as caretakers of these creatures extremely seriously. Where else can you see the world's ten deadliest snakes all in one place? (Note to Jilli: If you click on the link, somewhere on the site is a menu bar with a very small, cropped photo of a tarantula. Just don't look at it, and don't click on it!)
All in all, a good trip. I'd like to get away more often, but I don't like to leave the furgirls for more than just an overnight because I miss them too much. They were understandably clingy when we got home and sniffed us quite thoroughly, gathering up impressions of our weekend.
Got an early (for us - 8:45 a.m.) start on the road, our list of 20 caches in hand. We headed east on Highway 2 which runs from Monroe over Stevens Pass to Leavenworth. It was raining, but we steadily checked off the caches on our list until we headed up Stevens - at which point the rain turned to snow. I was in no way prepared for this, and I got quite scared as we hydroplaned a bit in the slush. I was worried not only about us (what with there being a sheer drop off one side of the road) but also about Shawn's beautiful truck. But he's an excellent driver, and we made it up, over, and down the other side with no problems. Caching in the snow is an interesting, if chilly, experience.
Soon the snow turned back to rain as we headed farther east. (What we didn't know at the time was that Stevens would be closed off and on, and Snoqualmie Pass closed as well, as a result of this sudden snow.) Caching in the rain is every bit as much non-fun as it sounds, so usually I just scrawled illegibly in the logbook and rabbited back to the car. We had 99 caches when we started, and our official "100th cache" was an anticlimactic micro on the side of the road in Monroe, so I wrote up "When Midnight Falls Upon the Castle" as our 100th in the Web log. It has a nice ring, doesn't it? It was about a mile hike along the river to a place with a big slab of rock overhanging a mysterious cave! Could it be a dragon's cave? We didn't go in, but it was a very cool place. The cache was not in the cave (because it wouldn't be allowed for safety reasons) but it still took us about 20 minutes to find because the hint was inconclusive. Our usual dynamic in situations like this is I give up fairly quickly but Shawn perseveres. I had read the hint to him a hundred times, but he asked me to read it one more time. This time we reinterpreted it literally and finally made the grab.
When we rolled into Leavenworth in the late afternoon, the sun had come out. I don't think I've ever experienced bad weather in this place! We checked into our suite at Hotel Anna, with a king-size bed and a parlor with a fireplace and jacuzzi tub. I'm simply dotty on the subject of tubs, and that's what sold the suite to me - the tub in a separate room with the fireplace. We had dinner of sauerbraten and beer at Mad King Ludwig's, which is by no means the best German food in the area, but it was familiar and we were a little grubby from caching, so I didn't want to go to one of the nicer restaurants. At least they had gluhwein (hot spiced wine), which is another thing I'm dotty about. The village rolls up the sidewalks at about 8 on Sunday, so we headed back to the room with nothing to do except loll around in the jacuzzi in front of the fire for several hours. Pity us.
Not only did the snow in the passes catch everybody by surprise, but apparently the whole region dropped into unseasonably cold temperatures! All the townspeople were talking about the weather. Monday was crystal clear and utterly beautiful and shockingly (for October) cold. I did a bit of shopping, picking up a few pendants (a snowflake and an acorn) and three starter bracelets so I can finally begin to make the charm bracelets I've been trying to get going on for months. The unexpected cold necessitated a quick purchase of gloves for me so we could finish our caching that day, schlepping around the lovely riverside park called Blackbird Island. The island is positively infested with leafy trees, and during autumn most of the ground is completely covered in fallen leaves. I felt a little dizzy just trying to walk because I couldn't see the terrain (slight hills or dips, sticks, rocks, etc.) against the featureless, dazzling gold. We met a couple of sweet dogs, including a black lab puppy who wrapped himself around my legs and cried with delight while I petted and fussed him. We also followed another geocaching couple around the island, eventually meeting up at a cache. Finally, we were snubbed by a blue heron who clearly didn't appreciate being gawked at when he was trying to fish.
We headed for home at about 5 p.m., which put us in Monroe too late to visit the Serpentarium. Like many people, I'm both terrified of and fascinated by snakes, so I like to stop by here and give myself a total case of the willies. I highly recommend it to anybody heading through the area. It's a very educational experience, and they take their responsibilities as caretakers of these creatures extremely seriously. Where else can you see the world's ten deadliest snakes all in one place? (Note to Jilli: If you click on the link, somewhere on the site is a menu bar with a very small, cropped photo of a tarantula. Just don't look at it, and don't click on it!)
All in all, a good trip. I'd like to get away more often, but I don't like to leave the furgirls for more than just an overnight because I miss them too much. They were understandably clingy when we got home and sniffed us quite thoroughly, gathering up impressions of our weekend.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 03:28 am (UTC)I'm jealous. Scott and I need to get out of town for a few days.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 09:30 am (UTC)Hugs!
Chris
no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 07:28 pm (UTC)