Leavenworth and Beyond

The Leavenworth Museum has this interesting photo in the entrance… It was cleverly done as a collage of the present day and the old town. Today Leavenworth looks like a quaint Bavarian town transplanted into northern Washington. It even has the appropriate pastries and ice cream!

More fun than the shops (for some of us) is just enjoying the interesting architecture. Some of the façades are painted on, to resemble pillars or three dimensional structures, but they really look great. You can just walk through town now with my pictures…

On an afternoon at the park, we saw this cool Rivian pickup. All electric, it is loaded with fascinating features the proud owner was happy to show us. Tonneau cover powers closed to cover the bed, racks on roof can mount on bed sidewalls, and there is a huge cargo tunnel behind the back doors. The tunnel doors can be used as steps, and hold things like the compressor to air up your water toys. You can option a slide tray in the tunnel for easy access to gear from either side (like under our motorhome.) There is even an optional kitchen that rides the tunnel slide with sink, cooktop and storage. I want one. 😉

When the car is turned on, the light bar across the front starts lighting in the center and spreads to the sides. His kids seemed to love peering in the headlights!

We had a cute little condo that Karen decorated with some beautiful tulips… some had interesting serrated edges. New to me. Very nice.

Loren rode in a 40 mile… tour. Or ride… He insisted it wasn’t a race. Then Karen asked if they would be timing riders. Well, yes. Will they keep track of who finishes in which place? Well, yes. But it’s not a race?? Well, sort of…

My goal was to film the start and the finish of the race/ride, but I got distracted at the start when a cool train passed nearby with two airplane fuselages headed for Boeing. Took a while to refocus on the race. Then Loren finished faster than he’d told us to expect, so he was at the finish line long before we arrived. So here is a couple minute video of the start of the race… or ride.

By the way, Loren came in 16th, which is pretty cool… especially since it wasn’t a race!

I did manage to get some nice shots of the scenery around Peshastin, a few miles south of Leavenworth, where the race started.

On the way home we stopped for lunch at the Wild Huckleberry, in Wenatchee, Washington. It’s a cute little restaurant that was built in a Sears Catalog house! I’ve heard of the catalog homes before, but never (to my knowledge) been in one before. From 1908 to 1940 Sears actually sold homes in their catalog. They called them “Modern Homes,” and they were made with quite high quality components. They would arrive by rail car, in pieces, and then you would have friends and neighbors assemble the house like an old fashioned barn raising. Or you could do it yourself, or hire a carpenter to do it for you. There were well over 300 different styles, and Sears says it sold over 70,000 of them! The millwork is beautiful, and plumbing, heating and electrical fixtures were options. For many families, these homes were their first with modern conveniences. The typical kit weighed about 25 tons and consisted of about 30,000 parts!

Back home in Spokane… Loren and Karen’s home has a great spot for our wheeled home. This pano shot makes it look like we are far away, but really the shop, garage, house and our motorhome form almost a circle around a nice gravel clearing. Very nice!

We are planning on a couple of weeks in this gorgeous spot, and that’s a good time to get the motorhome ready for our next jaunt. Somehow the plug on the end of the power cable got the insulation worn through, and we taped it up a while ago. But that’s not a very nice fix, especially in a 50 amp 240 volt line. So I got to replace the plug with a bright yellow one. Not as easy a task as I’d anticipated. Pretty stiff wires!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that Loren gets to be chauffeured frequently to different eye surgical centers around the Pacific Northwest. And sometimes I get to tag along for the day, and fly right seat. FUN! Here are a bunch of shots from my day in the jet… a Cessna Citation 3 flying from Spokane to Lewiston, Idaho, then back after a day’s work.

If that wasn’t enough jet stuff for you, here is a short video compilation of fast flying. Some of it I sped up a bit (since it is a jet it should look fast!) See if you can spot the insane bike rider crossing the runway in front of a landing jet!!

We spent a little time walking some trails near Spokane. This one flanks the site of Spokan Garry’s home. He was the son of a Chief, born in 1811 near the Spokane River. He was educated in a protestant school in what later became Winnipeg, Manitoba. He returned to Spokane and spent his life working for peace between his tribe and the white folks. He had some significant successes over the years, but ironically he ended up loosing his land to unscrupulous settlers and broken government promises. His last years were spent in his lodge, on this land which was owned by a white friend. (And yes, he had no “e” in his name.)

One day Loren flew away to work and left me behind! 😉 I picked him up at Felts Field, what was originally the main Spokane airport. It has a couple nice structures that speak of past busier times.