We started the day by taking a vote on going out to breakfast and home cooking lost. We took the beautiful drive from our campground north of Plain down to Leavenworth where we stopped in at a restaurant named Louis’s. I tried the chicken fried steak and Peggy got the Monte Cristo sannitch. My chicken fried steak was not very large but was certainly adequate and the sausage gravy they applied was great. I can state for a fact that Peggy’s Monte Cristo was good because I ate the 3/8 of it remaining after she crapped out. I also got a side bratwurst and it was pretty good, too. Cost was reasonable.
After we ate, we drove down the Wenatchee River to Cashmere where Peggy’s nephew, his spouse and their daughter live. There we met Peggy’s sister who was filling in as primary caregiver for the kiddo while mom got a short break to perform pesky chores. Peg’s nephew has gone to John Day, OR, for a few days for some training associated with trying to keep all us dummies from being incinerated each summer.
A couple hours of banter later, we departed and drove into the completely unremarkable town of Wenatchee where we stopped in at the local visitor information center. From there we were directed to a bookstore so we could acquire DeLorme maps of Washington and Idaho. These maps have ALL the roads on them, not just main highways like our road atlas. It took very little time to determine that there was not much to interest us in the town of Wenatchee but almost everything visible around it is quite stunning. The Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers have a confluence in Wenatchee and driving up either is a treat.
We selected to drive up the Columbia today, going up the north shore as far as Lake Chelan. The terrain adjacent to the Columbia is markedly different than up the Wenatchee. The Columbia passes through a deep gorge with gigantic rock bluffs on the north side and a skinny farming strip along the south shore. About 5 miles up river from Wenatchee is the small Rocky Reach Dam which was open for business and releasing quite a bit of water. Behind the dam is Lake Entiat which is actually the backed-up Columbia. The river still looks like a big, calm, linear lake where we crossed from the north shore to the south shore near Chelan. From there we drove back down the south shore to Wenatchee and up the Wenatchee River to our camp above Plain. We took the slow way from Leavenworth to Plain on Chumstick Creek Road which is very curvy but the scenery is fantastic. The balsam root plants are happily blooming and entire hillsides are covered with vibrant yellow flowers.
This part of the world is very scenic as long as you stay out of the city of Wenatchee. Abundant water is charging down creeks, waterfalls and rivers almost wherever you look. Deer and birds lounge in emerald green pastures. Even the estates of the rich out here are gorgeous outside and may even be nice inside as long as the residents are not home.
There’s some pix if you click here