Honeymoon Road Trip Day 1...

(click on photo's to enlarge!)

Methow Valley

And we're back again! We were only away for two nights and three days, but it felt like a lot longer. Great times!

I'll start with the route we took through the Northern Cascades...

We drove via Monroe, Leavenworth, Wenatchee, Winthrop, Sedro-Wooley, Lynden, Bellingham, Anacortes, Coupeville and Langley. All in all about 550 miles = 885 kilometres.

The first town we stopped at for some real German 'Curry Wurst' was Leavenworth of course. This town became 'Germanized' in the 1960's I believe to boost their tourism. I think it worked! Having lived in Bayern for five years I can see that they have done a really good job here.

Leavenworth

Leavenworth is also the start of the 'other side' of the Cascade Mountains. They have a very different climate here, hotter and drier and no trees!  <wink>

Upper left, a big wildfire on the horizon, thank goodness not on our path. 
(I just read that the fire is now 100 square miles wide and only 8% contained: bad news!)
Columbia River Gorge.

Beautiful Landscapes following the Columbia River up north. Our first overnight was in Winthrop, a little 'Western' town. Cute!

Winthrop

We took a tour of the Smoke- Jumpers' airbase nearby. (see photos below) Mr. G.'s dad was a real smoke-jumper here in 1947, one of the first! (we looked up his name in their archives)

Smoke-jumpers are people that jump out of a plane  ahead of wildfires and then start digging like crazy to build trenches to stop the spread of these wildfires. Very dangerous obviously! Once they are done they have to walk back out to a road which can be up to 28 miles, the smoke-jumper told us. Can you imagine the heat, the filth and the heavy gear on top of being utterly exhausted? Wow!

Another interesting part to the smoke-jumper's story was that they sew all their gear (not the suits, but all their giant backpacks, parachute bags etc) themselves on a 1940's industrial Pfaff sewing machine. I was in awe of his sewing skills and he of mine! (I was wearing my now favorite green with white peter-pan collar shift dress that I made a couple of weeks ago out of some old sheets)  {smile}

Smoke-Jumpers' Base in Wintrhop.
Very bad weather approaching in first picture.

We had a nice beer and dinner at the Old Schoolhouse Brewery in Winthrop and were happy to see our hotel room later on. Quite the day!  {smile}