Last of Washington State

In Bothell, WA there is a lovely place, called Lake Pleasant RV Park that does not have a website. That's pretty unusual now-a-days, but this place gets by on word of mouth alone, and was completely full when we were there. It's in a suburb of Seattle, with everything that implies, but is located in a little valley surrounded by trees, so you'd never know you were in the burbs. All the sites back up to two little lakes and most have grass and trees between them.  There are deeply shaded trails all through the hillsides around the park. It's the only park we've been to where they have fire extinguishers around the perimeter, about every 100 yards.

We were staying in Bothell to be close to the Boeing factory in Mukilteo, WA. Rick has been wanting to go on the tour there for a long time, so we finally made it.  Photography on the tour was prohibited, so we can't share that experience with you through pictures. Let me just say it was really large. Our tour guide provided us with lots of numbers that demonstrated just how large the buildings, the planes, the bay doors, etc, were. We got to see the new 787's being built and out on the runways waiting for delivery. We also saw a Dreamlifter, which reminded me of the Spruce Goose. Boeing uses these mega-planes to ship parts of the 787 (like whole wings and engines) from several other locations where they are assembled. 

We also popped into Seattle one evening just for a little look around. We went in with no plans, but ended up at the Olympic Sculpture Park at sunset, which was perfect.  All three of us got a nice walk.

Above is the Space Needle through Eagle, a Calder sculpture.

This one is called Schubert Sonata.

And this is Father and Son. The son half of the sculpture is inside the lighted fountain at the moment. 

The next day we left Seattle and headed east for Icicle RV Park, in Leavenworth, WA.... At least we thought that's where we were heading. It was a longish (for us) but very scenic drive along Rt. 2. We pulled into Icicle Park, hot and tired of course, and discovered they didn't have our reservation. I didn't have any confirmation information either. Oh well. This is the first time since we started out that this has happened. We've been very fortunate, and I never carry confirmation info with us, or at least not on hand. So we had to scramble to find another place. Some people do this all the time! I really do prefer having reservations, at least when it works the way it should.  Fortunately the folks at Icicle helped us find another place, Blu-Shastin, just on the other side of Leavenworth, so it all worked out fine.

It's a heavily wooded campground, with lots of families with kids, and many tents. This is the first time we've stayed in a park like this, and I liked it. We barely squeezed in between the trees. We were grateful for the shade though, as temperatures were really soaring and the sun was very strong. 

We were right next to a beautiful little river that we could hear all night. I spent a lot of time hanging out by the water the next day.  I felt like the rushing water and the sounds it made put my whole self into a harmonious, flowing rhythm with it. 

Leavenworth is a town on the eastern edge of the Cascades that decided to turn itself into a little piece of Bavaria.  This has brought lots of tourist business to what I gather was a dying little town.

I've never been to Bavaria, but I think they did a pretty good job. The architecture has been revised, or built new, to match the traditional style, and all the buildings have those classic Bavarian murals painted on them.

Everywhere there are flower boxes and hanging baskets, filled mostly with petunias. 

We had dinner at Andrea Keller's, a well known and highly rated, yes, Bavarian restaurant. We split two traditional dishes, a "sahne schnitzel" with cream sauce, and a beef goulash, with sides of spatzel and red cabbage. I even splurged and had a glass of German white wine.  It was all delish.

I finished my visit to central Washington by visiting the ubiquitous fruit stands selling cherries, berries, peaches and apricots. I love produce stands; my traveling buddies don't care one bit. Brought home ripe peaches and apricots. The next day we drove through the eastern half of Washington, which at first was orchard country, then turned into a desert, then transformed into "amber waves of grain." It was all hot. Now we're in Post Falls, Idaho, just outside Coeur d'Alene, and we are seriously running our air conditioners for the first time.