Day 10- Westward- Washington & Wine

Mile 2002: Enter Washington State

Our original plan was to hit Seattle today, but when you go hippie style, your plans can change. Because of labor day weekend and a music festival in Seattle, we were unable to get a decent hotel. We decided to add a stop in Leavenworth WA for the night. Washington wine country. More to come on this.

The drive from Idaho to Washington was very quiet. We did get to see fields of wheat as opposed to fields of corn or cows. We were expecting Washington to be completely green and were surprised to see so much beige. The colors were beautiful... and we were happy to see something other than corn

Mile 2106: Grand Coulee Dam

We saw the sign for the Grand Coulee Dam and decided it would be a great side trip on our drive. James has been to Hoover Dam, so we had some expectations. With the name "Grand", it must be amazing.

Grand Coulee Dam on the approach

The not so grand Coulee Dam. 

The Coulee Corridor Scenic Byway was a beautiful backdrop however. If we stayed on the main road, we would have missed this.

Banks Lake

2146: Dust Devils

You really have to look hard to see the dust devils, but these little tornadoes of dirt were all through the fields

Ignore the dead bugs on the windshield and look closely on the left side of the horizon

We were excited to arrive in wine country. First stop, winery Tuscana!

Beautiful vineyards... but we couldn't find the proprietor. Apparently, there are many places closed on Sunday- even the Sunday of Labor Day weekend.

Slow start. Next, we checked into the bed and breakfast- Orchard House. It was clean, very nice (no creepy dolls or knickknacks). There were a couple of great hosts at the B&B. One was the woman running the place... the other was Tricky Woo.

This is Tricky Woo. He can only turn to the left and enjoyed spinning in circles quite a bit. That was his signature move. It took about 10 pictures for me to get one that wasn't blurry because of the constant spinning. He was hilarious.

Finally, we head into town. Since we can't get wine, maybe we can get some food.

Leavenworth is an old town, but was 'reinvented' as a mock Bavarian village in the 1960's to attract tourists 

They were successful in attracting tourists. The place was packed. 

It seemed like Wildwood NJ meets Epcot Center- with high quality wine and mountains.

James at dinner. Waiting for his sausage. Insert joke here. 

It turns out most of the wineries/vineyards have shops in town where you can do the tastings. We did a couple and it was nice, but not the same atmosphere as the vineyard experience. I think it was bad timing for us to get here on a Sunday. Leavenworth has it's perks (great wine, breathtaking scenery, nice bed and breakfasts), but we won't be coming back. It's a little too tourist focused for our taste. There are 2500 residents and about 10,000 tourists (I made up that number, but that is the feeling you get in the town).

Great breakfast at our B&B before our short drive to Seattle

It's mostly un-eaten... at least we are getting better at remembering to snap the photo within the first couple of bites. 

Tomorrow: Seattle