not just a prison....

...Leavenworth

We honor Veterans by closing health care services for them on the Monday closest to their celebratory day. Judd and I decided that was a three-day weekend for a road trip. Leavenworth is 4 hours northwest of Walla Walla as the car drives--just this side (east) of the snow clad Cascade Mountains which come into view on the drive into town. Previously a booming pioneer town for the logging industry, when the railroad pulled out Leavenworth fell upon economic hardship. A bunch of town councilmen got together in the 1960's to brainstorm how to revive the town. They came up with the creative plan to remodel the town into a Bavarian hamlet. Now there are city ordinances about which old European font can be used on signs--even MacDonalds and Starbucks had to comply. Indeed, now tourism is the big business and they do it up right. Although Fall is not quite over, they were hustling up all the Christmas regalia and shopping, eating and drinking, Bavarian style are the things to do. We did.

We checked into Mrs Anderson's Boarding House via a complicated passcode system. Mrs. Anderson is no where on the premises. She emails you a push button code to get into the foyer and then another code to release your room key from the wall. Someone is available by phone if you can't negotiate the system. We parked in our designated part of the alley as the town is small enough (and crowded enough) to walk everywhere.

In between beer and wine tasting there is shop after shop of kitsch, some with a single theme: ie. "Russia," or "Clocks," or "Socks," and some with everything under the tree in one store. (more samples below)
We started making notes of some of the catchy phrases on everything from T-shirts to plaques to block of wood to place on your mantle.

We did gin tasting at Blue Spirits and the owner told us why he was allowed to make whisky without and "e" even though he's not in Scotland. We'll fact check that again. For dinner, I was in search of weinerschnitzel which I recall fondly from my two years in Germany (Fourth and Fifth grade.) My Dad was stationed in Illisheim and although we lived on the Army base, we got authentic cuisine downtown. King Ludwig's was hopping, probably because of the live polka band and they had authetic beer maids and real weinerschnitzel. Judd had the Jagerschnitzel. (the weiner- is breaded veal chop and Jager- is breaded pork chop.) Yum.

We continued our tour through town by stopping at a beer and cider bar--26 types on draft. Then we listened to live music at The Stein. We were so inspired by the swing band number at the end that we danced a little on our way out the door. Strangers on our walk the next morning asked if we'd enjoyed the Stein and I didn't recognize them. Judd realized they'd "appreciated" our dancing.

Saturday-- More food and beveraging:
Cafe Renaissance for breakfast

Ginerbread factory for strudel but I had a linzer torte cookie and Judd got a totally nuked cinnamon bun schnenckennudein

I redeemed my menu selection when Judd got a street brat at Cheesesteak.

We were window shopping along side streets and came upon several places for wine tasting in between shops. We started at Kasia and proceeded to Water from Wine. They suck you in because the lunch shop gives you a coupon for a "free taste" at the place around the block and when they get you in the door, it's for one taste not a flight of tastes. We bought a bottle at Water from Wine because some of the proceeds go to getting clean drinking water around the world. You feel almost virtuous that you're drinking wine at 11am.

Our favorite vineyard (for decor and stories, not necessarily for wine) was "Hard row to hoe." Only after hearing the owner describe her story did we understand the pun. The woman-run establishment has a nautical-brothel sort of theme, red undies with black lace hanging around, complete with a Burt Reynolds centerfold hanging over the bar = "Nauti Buoy." Wines have such names as Burning Desire or Afternoon Delight. The story goes: when the Coulee Dam project was closing down, the local female talent needed a new venue. They moved up to a house on Point Lovely on Lake Chelan. When the mining men got off duty on one side of the lake, an enterprising lad with a row boat, took men over to Point Lovely-- "a hard row to hoe." http://www.hardrow.com/story/

We had an ill fated Nutcracker Museum visit. The museum boasts over 6000 nutcrackers. We weren't sure we wanted to pay the fee as we were seeing plenty of nutcrackers from the street entrance and the museum entry way. I was going to snap a quick selfie and leave but the matron behind the desk seemed on to me. My pic was so bad I deleted it anyway. But I was put off by the sign on the door "Veterans and their wives enter free today." I know a whole lot of women Vets who don't have wives. I did feel I should gently educate the nice lady. I started by saying I really appreciated her generosity for Veterans that day, but that I worked with many women Vets who wouldn't appreciate the sign. She did say, "well then they can bring their husbands" and I said thank you. But then when Judd and I left she came following us down the stairs. I think she thought we were mad about the sign and thus leaving without an entrance fee. We were just leaving because we didn't want to go. I felt like a jerk for not paying the $5 and making ourselves politely go look around.

We had first dinner (giant pretzels with mustard and horseradish) at Rhein Haus where it was warm enough with the fire pit in the table to eat outside . Our table overlooked the Ricola lady blowing her alphorn. She had been carrying her ginormous horn all over town and every so often we'd hear her play it. Second dinner was tasting cheese and sliced deli meat at CURED. We retired early and decided to depart town early Monday. Still in search of a strudel, we stopped at the fancy-font Starbucks and finally succeeded! It was a meat-, cheese -and bread-dense weekend--A last fling before we go vegetarian for the week before Thanksgiving and the holiday month.