Leavenworth, Washington - May 8th to 9th, 2022
We seem to be drawn to the German culture, whether it is the people, the language, the architecture, or the food. It is probably due to a combination of our German heritage and the couple of years we spent living in Germany several decades ago. So naturally, we had to stop in Leavenworth on our way through the state of Washington.
Sunday we woke up to sleet. But that was OK, it was a drive day. We ate breakfast, packed up and hit the road by 9:30 am. As we drove out of the Kootenai National Forest in Montana, we could see fresh snow on the mountain tops around us. Heading west, we crossed the Idaho panhandle, past Lake Pend Orielle, and into the state of Washington. From Spokane, we hopped on I-90 to cross the Columbia Plateau. The plateau was pretty uneventful, at least scenery-wise. At one point, Ann felt something on her scalp. When she reached up, she grabbed a tick from her hairline. Tick number 4, ugh! (The first two ticks were at Flathead Lake, and the third one was in Kootenai National Forest). She tried squishing it in a tissue with her finger nail, but wasn’t sure it was dead. So she stuck it in a ziplock bag and disposed of it at the next rest area. We’ll feel a little better on Tuesday when we pick up the tick removal kits we ordered on Amazon.
When we started heading north to Quincy and on to Wenatchee, there were fruit orchards and grape vineyards everywhere. We now know where all those Washington apples come from! One of the farmers had signs along the road indicating what was planted in each field. That was nice. We wish more farmers would do that for us “city folk”.
Going north also led us back into the mountains. The road follows the Columbia River, past the Rock Island Dam to Wenatchee. From Wenatchee, we headed west along the Wenatchee River to Leavenworth. Along the way, we played the Kerry Christensen CD “Yodeling” which we picked up the last time we were in Leavenworth to get in the mood (Slice of Germany & Mosquitos in the Pacific Northwest - July 8, 2019). Leavenworth is like a Bavarian village. Unlike most communities who take on the character of immigrant populations, Leavenworth just decided to become a Bavarian village in the 1960’s as a way to attract tourists and help their struggling economy. They did a great job! All the buildings in town joined in, even the Starbucks and McDonald’s took on a German flare.
We camped just on the edge of town at the Leavenworth KOA. It is walking distance to the center of town, less than a mile, but there is also a shuttle bus stop a block away that runs every 20 minutes until 7 pm. After checking in and setting up, we walked into town. It was Sunday, Mother’s Day, and the town was pretty busy. However, we had no problem getting a table at Andreas Keller Restaurant for dinner. It was nice not only not to cook on Mother’s Day, but also to have some authentic German food. Ann had the Käsespätzle (egg noodles with Swiss cheese and onions - although the green onions instead of sautéd onions was a new twist) with a side of red cabbage (Rotkohl) while Keith had the Bavarian Gulasch (beef stew) with spätzle (German/Swiss egg noodles). Of course Keith also had a Dunkeles beer. For dessert we each had an Apfelstrudel with vanilla sauce and whipped cream. Delicious!
After dinner, we strolled up and down Front Street to admire the buildings and May Pole. Leavenworth celebrates Maifest on the weekends for the whole month of May. However, they were already packing up the craft booths when we arrived. Bad timing. We missed the dancing, live music, and Alpen horns. We should have researched that a little better and arrived a little earlier in the day. Oh well!
We stopped at Icycle Brewing Company so Keith could have another beer. This time he had the Happy Birthday Fest beer, even though it was not our birthdays. The beer was good, but we were a little disappointed that they were playing modern music instead of traditional German music like Andreas Keller did. Despite missing the Maifest, we still had a lovely evening.
Monday morning, we did our laundry. The KOA has lovely “comfort stations” that have restrooms, showers and laundry facilities. The buildings look pretty new and the staff keeps them well maintained and clean. We normally are not big fans of private RV parks, but this is a nice one. They have a variety of sites, from tent sites with no hook-ups, partial hook-ups, full hook-ups, and premium sites with Weber gas grills and patio furniture. The property also contains quite a few nice looking cabins. There is a short trail leading from the campground ground down to the bank of the Wenatchee River.
After putting away our clean laundry, we walked into town and spent the rest of the day there. Continuing our experience of the Bavarian village, we had lunch at the München Haus beer garden. Keith ordered a weisswurst while Ann get the bratwurst along with sides of German potato salad. We both loaded our sausages with apple cider sauerkraut and one of the dozen or so mustards available. Ann chose the spicy brown mustard while Keith had the champagne honey mustard. München Haus also served Icycle Brewing Company beer, the same that Keith had the evening before. This time he chose the Oktoberfest Dunkel beer.
Then we needed to walk off those calories, so we headed towards the parks along the river. First we headed down to the end of Front Street and circled the miniature golf course. Walking down Commercial Street, we reached the Riverwalk near Posthotel Leavenworth. From there we crossed the bridge over to Blackbird Island. The island is wooded with peaceful trails. We came across a young deer. He did not seem very bothered by our presence. Taking the bridge at the other end of the island brought us over to Enchantment Park with more trails through the woods. There were informational signs every now and then along the trails with interesting facts about the local history, flora, and fauna. We learned how to recognize stinging nettle and how the horsetail rush was used.
After we circled back to Blackbird Island and back to the Riverwalk, we headed up into town for an afternoon pastry. The Danish Bakery fit the bill. Keith’s cherry strudel was a little different style than what we are accustomed to having in Germany, but still delicious. Ann’s Cream Bollen was also very tasty. We washed our sweets down with cups of chai.
Fueled with more calories, we returned to walking some more. We headed back to the Riverwalk, following it all the way to the little sandy beach along the river. Then we hiked back up into town to wander some of the streets we missed before and revisit some others. We walked into a couple of the shops, but we are not big fans of shopping, even window shopping.
Somehow we managed to pass the time until we could eat again. Dinner was at Ludwig’s Restaurant. Kassler Rippchen for Ann, Munich-style chicken for Keith. Keith picked the place for the chicken. He loves his fest chicken (a rotisserie chicken) and was so disappointed when he found out that Andreas Keller was out of it the day before. However, it did not live up to his expectations from his memories of Germany. However, thirty years can alter your memories. Despite being full, Ann couldn’t resist ordering an Apfelstrudel for dessert. Keith was good and only had one bite.
After dinner, we waddled the mile back to the campground. From what our phones told us, we managed to walk about ten miles that day. Unfortunately, that was probably not even close to burning the calories we took in during the day. Thankfully, for the sake of our waistlines and our wallets, we were leaving town the next day.
We were planning to cross into Canada in three days, so we filled out our documentation in the ArriveCAN app. You are required to fill it out within 72 hours of crossing the border. There were three different places we could cross, so we were hoping to wait to see which one would have the least traffic. However, the ArriveCAN app required us to specify the port of entry, so we chose Aldergrove. It also had us specify a time. We made our best guess and said 11 am. We’re not sure how much leeway we have on the time. Is the time not that important for a land entry? Do they just want to make sure we’re planning on crossing within the port of entry open hours? As long as we cross sometime during the day we specified, is that OK? After we had everything filled out and our documents uploaded (passports and proof of COVID vaccination), we pushed the Submit button. After a couple of seconds, it came back with a “submission failed - 503 error”, try again. After several attempts with the same result, we waited a couple of hours. Then we tried again. This time it worked! Yay!
Ann did not sleep well that night, probably due to how full her stomach was. During most of the night, she could hear a loud, constant noise that sounded like a helicopter, something industrial. Keith had mentioned that he heard it the night before, but Ann had slept through it all. The noise did not stop until about 6 am. She got up about 4 am to make a bathroom run. The noise was not coming from the cabin heaters and it was definitely not a train, our two guesses earlier that day. It sounded like it was echoing from the river valley, with an accompanying low rumble. Perplexed, we did some internet research the next day. We struggled finding anything about it. As loud and annoying as it was, you would think someone would be mentioning it or complaining about it. Then Ann came across an old news article in the Seattle Times from 2009 about a mysterious, late night noise, whose description seemed to match what we heard. The culprit? Nightly road construction work, where they were grinding up the old concrete road bed. The noise comes from the grinding machines. We did see road construction on US 2 on our way to Leavenworth. That must be the culprit. Mystery solved!
We managed to fill our two days in Leavenworth with plenty of German architecture, music, and food. We left with our pants fitting a little more snugly but there were smiles on our faces.
<add link to Kootenai>
Check out our related video: Leavenworth, Washington
(Ann)