Jägerschnitzel and Lederhosen

We spent last weekend channeling our inner German on a roadtrip to Little Bavaria. Leavenworth, WA, is an old logging and railroad town that turned to tourism for survival 30 years after the mills closed and the trains re-routed. Talk about creativity and a strong community effort to keep a middle-of-nowhere, death-sentenced town alive and thriving for the past 50 years! I've never been to Germany, but the place seemed authentic enough to me-- in a quaint, touristy sort of way-- excepted for the American flags. And the "Alpine" mountain backdrop was breathtakingly beautiful. It's hard for me to choose a favorite picture to post, so here are quite a few. There are even more at our Picasa site.



























Leavenworth hosts multiple festivals and events throughout the year. They use the super-tall pole (partially pictured here) for different celebrations, although I'm not sure what they do our how they do it.




Are you tired of pictures yet? More of my blabbering will be coming shortly. Check out that limo. I'd hate to drive that when the roads are all snowy!



























This is where we stayed: The Enzian Inn. Pretty sweet, huh? Chris spared no expense for us. Okay, so the picture is actually the 4th floor breakfast room, but still, we were there. Our room was a first-floor standard complete with real keys and a wooden door, handcrafted furniture, European bedding (no flat sheet), and cheesy flowers painted on the wall.
Each morning at breakfast the hotel owner, Mr Johnson, stands precariously perched on the balcony ledge and toots his own horn. Do you see how thin that ledge is? If I owned the hotel, I'd pay someone else to dress up like a leprechaun and give the alphorn concert.

It was really neat to see-- a little old man standing on the rooftop and awakening the village. I know he played it well and with all his mighty breath, but my uncultured ears only absorbed a solo performance from a Ricola commercial.

We had dinner at King Ludwig's restaurant. We went there because of the advertised polka music, but ended up being serenaded by a sole performer. The polka convention must've been elsewhere that night. Ally still enjoyed shaking her booty to the music and listening to "Happy Birthday to You" played just for her-- even though it wasn't her big day. She became especially excited when we discovered Frank Calapristi, the lederhosen-wearing accordion player, was actually a Philadelphia-raised feather-struttin' Mummer in disguise!


That pretty much covers Leavenworth. I'll hopefully soon be able to post about the small adventures we had on the way there: Harrowing tales of a rattlesnake mountain, nuclear tumbleweeds, haunting orchards, a candy factory, and a ginormous swine.