Day 1 - Leavenworth

With my two week vacation coming up and no definitive plans, I got this idea that Felix and I should take a camping trip.  My original plan was a 'tour' of the Washington peninsula: Lake Crescent, Lake Quinalt, and Ocean Shores.  But Washington weather had foiled my hopes so I looked at other locales.  I had strongly considered Washington's two prominent volcanoes: Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens.  But Felix, who has been very interested in volcanoes, was wary.  He didn't like the idea because he was afraid of an eruption.  I really thought that was going to be a winner.
It makes me question the books we read to him; I don't intend to scare him with nature books that describe the awesome destructive force, the leveling of towns, the obliteration of all living things in the path of an erupting volcano.  I will have to choose more wisely.
Anyway, I had also considered Crater Lake in Oregon, a place I've always wanted to visit, but the drive would be too long.  Then Renae gave me the idea of part of the Cascade loop into Eastern Washington.  I looked through my 2002 road atlas and we decided a night each camping in Newhalem, and Lake Chelan State Park, and a final night in the comfort of a hotel in Leavenworth.  But Washington weather again altered my plans- camping in the North Cascades (Newhalem) would be met with rain on day one.  We would have to reverse our loop and begin in Leavenworth.

We left at 10am on Tuesday, August 10th.  The drive through the pass was scenic enough and we arrived in Leavenworth sometime between noon and 1pm. I parked the car on the busy Front St, the main strip in this Bavarianesque town.  Felix seemed confused, "Are we going to camp here?", he asked.  I explained that because of the weather in the North Cascades on this day, we had to go to Leavenworth first.  He was bummed, he really wanted to camp the first night.  He didn't even want to get out of the car to look around.  Of course he soon did, but he was quiet and just kind of shuffling his feet.  It was about lunchtime now, so we found a restaurant (I've forgotten the name, something with 'bear' in it) and had very good pizza.  The food brought him around, and once we found a hotel (Obertal Inn), we walked down to the Wenatchee River. 
The river was pretty cold, but it was 90 degrees out and the cold water felt good.  We spent a couple of hours there.  Felix tried to catch the small fish with his bare hands, and then we dug a little channel ("Channels are on the TV, dad") from a small pool that splintered off from the river.  This was to "allow" the fish in the pool to rejoin their friends in the river.  We actually managed to push one small fish through. 
We then walked around town and came to rest at Front Street Park which had a good sized grassy hill.  This was a big hit with Felix.  His first run down the hill he managed a pretty spectacular tumble- once leaving his feet his next touch was the back of his head.  This picture is just a second before the fall.  He seemed a little stunned and then smiled broadly and ran back up the hill.  His subsequent descents were slightly more cautious.

In the park we found some large rocks that served as landscaping and a barrier between the upper sidewalk and the lower park.  The rocks surrounded a large pine tree.  Felix climbed upon the rocks below the tree and insisted I take some picture of him there- with both of our cameras.
We had dinner at Munchen Haus, I think it was called.  We took a walk along the river, bought Felix a Batman shirt, played some more at the park until dark. 
The next morning we were up early, before almost all other tourists and got to see a few of the shopkeepers preparing for the day, a lot of that was watering the flowers that decorate every building.  At 11am we checked out and headed up SR97 for Lake Chelan State Park.