Two-and-a-half years ago, in the middle of summer, we took a day trip to Leavenworth, WA, about a 3 hour drive from our hometown. It was a fun day, and afterwards we discussed potentially staying overnight in the winter, when the town is decked out for Christmas. That we found ourselves there on a family weekend getaway in the middle of April was, as Judy Moody would say, “rare.”
It was a bit of a last minute decision, when my husband had to take or lose vacation time. (Always take vacation time!) He timed it with my daughter’s spring break. “Too bad you’re not on spring break too, we could take a trip.” This suggestion floored me, because I basically spend half my waking life thinking about traveling, whereas my husband spends most of his thinking of ways to stay home. I digress. I was not on break from work, but I do have Fridays off, so we planned a little trip.
If you are unfamiliar with the lay of Washington land, but you are a cynic at heart, then you would definitely consider Leavenworth a tourist trap. It’s a small town in the middle of the Cascades decorated to look like a Bavarian town. It was a last ditch effort to save the town from financial ruin after the railroad left town and the local mill closed. It worked, and now people go there to see the sights, pretend they’re in Germany when they’re not, and spend money. So yeah, it’s a tourist trap, but a very pretty one.
Our first morning there, I left the hotel and walked across the street to the Starbucks to get breakfast. It was about 8:30 in the morning. The normally busy main street was empty. It was quiet. I looked up past the steepled building at the frothy, low hanging clouds and snow-capped mountains that surrounded me. It was serene, for two reasons. First, it is a beautiful sight to behold, and second, I was able to behold it and also be at Starbucks.
This strange dichotomy is close to my heart. I want the serenity of a quiet, removed location and the convenience of being able to walk everywhere I want to go. I want to be away from the poisonous busy-ness that plagues modern-day living, but not so far away that I’m inconvenienced in any way.
On Saturday, we went to a farm so Sonja could try horseback riding. Driving there on a narrow, unpainted back road, we saw houses so few and far between, you’d almost need a car to get to your neighbor’s. These are the houses that are featured in Nancy Myers movies. I want to live in these houses.
Just not on a farm. Sonja had a great time horseback riding, though. She was very adamant before we went that she wanted to know the horse’s name. It was Cinnamon Sugar. She rode Cinnamon around the farm. There was only one other trail open this early in the year, and it was a 90-minute ride. She assured me she wanted to do this, but aside from the fact I had no real desire to be on a horse for 90-minutes, I knew she would get bored and whiny halfway through. The ten-minute trek was a perfect introduction.
There was plenty that Sonja was not happy about on the trip. I’ve been trying some new parenting techniques to thwart meltdowns, when I have the energy. I managed at least one victory on our last night in town, when she was throwing a fit about being too tired to walk back to the hotel, which was less than a block away. I suggested we walk backwards the entire way; the meltdown was thwarted and a grand time was had by all, us and onlookers wondering what the hell we were doing. But I had to ask myself why she is so good on the traveling part of our trips – you can barely tell she’s in the car, and that’s whether she’s playing a video game or just staring out the window – but so very temperamental when we get there. I asked her about it, and it seems our plans did not mesh up with her vision of the trip. She thought when we went back to the hotel after being out in the city, we would be staying at the hotel for the night. But we went back several times during the day because we could. It was very convenient On most of our other vacations, that has not been an option. I see trip-planning and to-do lists in our future.
All in all, it was a lovely little getaway. The mountain air was clean and, surprisingly, not as cold or as rainy as it is here. I got to test out my new suitcase before our big summer vacation. Our motel was adorable and allergen-friendly with a wood floor. The shops were unspeakably cute. I was very surprised and happy to come home with some sustainable purchases that I have been unable to find in my own, much more populated suburb. (I will talk more extensively on that in another post.) The mini-golf course was laughably hard. Even the windy-roaded drive was fun. We stopped many places along the way and way back, including the small town of Roslyn, famous for playing the part of Alaska in the show Northern Exposure.
I see more weekend getaways in my future. They are good for the soul. A hotel across from Starbucks may be a requirement.
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