Leavenworth, WA

My wife and I went for a brief trip to Leavenworth, a Bavarian-themed town in the North Cascades mountains, the "Alps of the U.S." Leavenworth is a center for skiing and other winter sports, as well as for river rafting and hiking, but it primarily is a tourist town, with excellent restaurants and lots of gift and art shops. It's a beautiful area, recovered well from a big fire a few years ago, and this year the Wenatchee river and its tributaries are high because of a very wet winter.


We enjoyed hikes and drives around the surrounding forest and valleys, and we stayed in a very luxurious B&B. This was the view from our deck. While we were sitting out there on a swing, several Canadian geese flew low overhead and landed on the river.


We had a great time, but it's good to be home again.

John, that looks spectacular! Thanks for the photos.

Wow, beautiful!

Very nice. There is a similar town in the North Georgia mountains called Helen. It's a great place to visit and I'll bet you all had a great time at Leavenworth.

The Cascade Mountains is an extremely beautiful mountain range and I love driving through there whenever we go camping near Twisp, WA.

Beautiful

I love Leavenworth. In 1990, we built a log house on the Wenatchee River outside of Plain, about ten miles west. The kids were too young (two and zero), and my lovely wife didn't enjoy the Friday phenomenon of me coming home from work, changing my clothes and loading us into the car for the two-hour journey from Seattle. Or her Saturday morning ritual of cleaning the house while watching the small babies, as I went mountain biking. Or Sunday when she cleaned and packed while I was mountain biking. When she pleaded with me to get rid of the second home a couple of years later, I did a quick calculation, and decided my marriage was more important than our beautiful mountain home. We sold the house. I miss it, but I would miss my marriage more.