RV Travels With Huggy

This past week we returned to one of our favorite area towns, Leavenworth WA. It is about 130 miles away, east of us on US 2 on the east side of Stevens Pass through the Cascade Mountain Range. Leavenworth was a railroad town but went into decline when the railroads decided to no longer make stops there. Some in the town recognized the similarities of their area to the Bavarian area of Germany and proposed that they go through a rebirth to make themselves a Bavarian community here in the Washington State Cascade Mountains. They did that and have been quite successful. It is close enough to the population area around Seattle that many from the Puget Sound region go there, for a day or for a bit longer.


This view is looking west in the downtown area of the village. There are commercial buildings on the left and the town square is on the right. In mid-March the leaves have not yet returned to the deciduous trees so they are bare. There is also not much snow on the foothills around town. The Pacific Ocean had an El Nino year this year and most of the precipitation that usually falls here in the NW instead went south to California. I know they need water but think this year they actually got more than they wanted. I understand that some of it also traveled east, as far as the east coast, so they got some of our mountain's normal snowfall.


If we are not traveling in an RV, we like to stay in one of two hotels in town and they are both in this photo. This trip we stayed in the Linderhof Inn, the nearest one in the photo, but the Enzian Inn is in the background. Both are good places to stay while in Leavenworth. Both are right on US 2 as it goes through town and the entry to the shopping village is just a block away and across the highway. There are well marked pedestrian crosswalks and the traffic seems to be well trained to stop for pedestrians. Both these hotels have swimming polls (outdoors, so they were not yet open on this trip but the hot tubs were) as well as other things and breakfast is included in your room rate. At Enzian it is a full buffet meal.


There are many places to eat in town and most offer German food as well as regular American fare. Gustav's, shown here, is a tavern that is across the street and a block away from the Linderhof Inn. The food is primarily sandwiches but they are very good and there's a good selection of northwest brewed beer and ales. I like their Sleeping Maiden Porter but Pat prefers to stay with her wine. Beyond Gustav's in the photo you can see Visconti's, an Italian food place, that is also very good although more of a dinner place. We also love Cafe Christa in town on the second floor so you have a neat view overlooking the downtown village and the town square across the street. And they have a Bavarian chocolate mouse (did I spell that right?) that is so rich one serving is more than we two can eat together. A great place for a mid-afternoon break for coffee and desert.


Another view here of the foothills around town, showing how little snow there is this year. All the snow would normally be gone by mid summer but this photo was taken while it was still officially winter. These hills should be covered solidly with snow at this time of the year. Instead of it falling here, it went to Maryland and Virginia and that other Washington. Can we have our snow back next year, please?


I like attractive girls and anyone who has read my blog for very long knows that I really like my mochas, so when I spotted this young lady across the street pushing her baby in a stroller AND drinking a mocha, I couldn't resist taking her picture. It would be nicer with leaves on the trees behind her but I kind of like it this way, too. Made me want to go get a mocha. But not a baby. Been there, done that, and am now very happy with Grandkids. I can enjoy them and return them to their parents later in the day. But I think this is still a nice photo.

We only spent two nights in Leavenworth but that gave us half of the day we arrived and all day the second day, plus a little time on the third day. In a tourist trap type town where there are almost too many things to buy, that is long enough for one trip. We may well return later in the year for another visit and in a month and a half we will be going to the Oregon Coast for a week or so. Our travels now do not involve an RV but we are still getting out, seeing and doing things around the area and I will continue to take photos and make blog posts here. I have even started a Travel Photos set on my Flickr photo site (click on any of these photos to be taken there) and may go back in the Flickr archives to add some earlier photos to that set. More later.

Labels: Landscapes, Photos, Small towns, Trips to see things, Weather