Just Another Boring Travelogue…

We stayed a couple of days near Snoqualmie Falls, outside of Redmond and Kirkland, Washington. They’re both very nice towns, but I was really impressed with Kirkland. It’s a really nice, upscale town on the shore of Lake Washington (think Saratoga on a lakefront). Of course, the weather is at its best and I can only imagine the winters here, but it’s easy to see why Microsoft moved to this area.

The drive across the bridges into Seattle was the prettiest drive into a city that I’ve seen (including S.F.). We did the typical tourist stuff; took the elevator to the top of the Space Needle and went to the Pike Place Market. This is a very vibrant city. Did you know that Nordstrom’s started here?

We had a lovely dinner with my cousin, Sandy & her daughter’s family, and then headed east the next morning. We spent some time in Leavenworth, which a Bavarian style town in the mountains. It reminded us of Solvang in California. We finished the day in Wenatchee, staying at the Confluence State park where the Wenatchee River meets the Columbia. Les likes this area best so far, because we’re finally out of the heavily wooded terrain that you find in Western Washington and Oregon. He likes being able to see a horizon.

Wenatchee is the largest apple producing region in the world and the harvest was in full swing. The trees were loaded with fruit! The pear crop is apparently very good this year as well.

We toured the Rocky Reach Dam, in Wenatchee, which was built in 1959. The whole dam was built to scale at the University of Washington prior to any construction being done to make sure all the engineering was correct! Since we also toured the Bonneville Dam, near Hood River, Oregon, I’ve had about all the Dam fun I can stand. I think we’ll skip the Grand Coulee Dam!

We continue to head east towards Glacier Park in Montana, with a couple of stops in Spokane and Coeur D’Alene along the way.