We Drive The Cascade Loop – So You Don’t Have To – Part Deux

(See part one here.)

We got up Saturday, had breakfast at the hotel (an unscientific survey shows that approximately 75% of American adults cannot work a self serve waffle station to save their lives. Get it together people, it’s only marginally harder than toast.) We were back on the road. Stopped  in the town of Cashmere where one of my kids, the normally unfunny one busted out the line of the weekend; Upon spying a group eating ice cream in front of a hardware store downtown Cashmere she observed that there appeared to be an old lady convention in town. We had stopped in Cashmere because of the frequent and unending road side signs saying it had the worlds best candy factory, at The Applets and Cotlets shop, with tours and samples.

A very large downside to having kids that can read is they will read the billboards all along the loop and hound you every single mile until you reach the world best candy factory tour WITH FREE SAMPLES!  We stopped, apparently Applets are some weird Turkish Delight, but with the goodness of apple. I have no idea what the hell Cotlets are, but they did taste of the bitterness of disappointment. The taco truck at the Texaco where you pull off the highway was the only reason to stop in Cashmere, unless of course you are in for the old lady convention.

We continued along the highway to the Bavarian village of Leavenworth. An old lumber and railroad town that reinvented itself after the railroads were gone and trees all cut. The other alternative being shrivelling up and dying. My wife has wanted to go there for years, she thought it would be campy fun with the bonus of schnitzel. It’s not. It’s camp alright, but not the good camp, self aware of it’s post modern kitsch value, rather it fancies itself a slice of Europe that doesn’t require a passport. Uhh, no. Gorgeous old brick buildings, the kind that command a premium rent in Gastown have had faux Germanic facade slapped over them. Had lunch at a charming beer garden, Munchen Haus aka Rick Greenland Two. Great draft beer and hot dogs outside. In spite of the fact that I quite enjoyed lunch, anymore time spent in Leavenworth dodging the morbidly obese old people riding scooters and trailing oxygen canisters like they were going up the North Col on Everest would see me go into a Falling Down-like killing spree. We had to get out. Ended up renting a beautiful house a mile outside of town beside the river. After a trip to Safeway we were provisioned to not have to return to town proper.

Spent the afternoon seeing who could keep their feet in the river the longest and discussing various things we would do should one of the deer that were everywhere stroll up and ask to be cooked. Got up the next morning homeward bound, without a single culinary recommendation to give for the whole weekends adventures. A stop at the outlet mall north of Everett and we were home.

Well, maybe one recommendation. How do you not stop for lunch at somewhere whose sign advertises reptile zoo AND barbecue?

~KT