PNNL (my employer) often sets up bus trips to attractions in the area. Most of the fun stuff is about a 3 hour drive, so sometimes it is really great to go see mountains without having to drive or stay overnight! Chase and I were able to take advantage of a bus trip to Leavenworth, WA for their Christmas tree lighting. Leavenworth, WA is a tourist trap town at the base of the mountains. It has a Bavarian theme. Some of our friends here were able to go on the trip as well! It was a fun day! I do wish we would have seen some more snow though. It took me awhile to get used to the volume of snow in MN, but now I find myself missing it a ton! Its so dry and ugly here. I've also had to get used to a new weather phenomenon called "freezing fog". Here is a picture from one of my commutes this week. Sorry the quality is poor, I took the picture with my phone through my car wind shield. However, sometimes we get awesome sunrises and clear skies! In the picture on the right you can see the moon setting while the sunrise illuminates Rattlesnake mountain. So pretty!
Ok, back to Leavenworth and pictures! The bus ride was pretty nice and they had snacks and water for us. We all chatted most of the way up and the took short naps right before we got there. It was so pretty driving into the snow! There wasn't too much snow in Leavenworth, but just enough so that it was fun to walk around in and see on the mountains! First we headed straight down to the river to check out the views and snow. The first picture is my favorite I think.
It was cold. Surprise, surprise
What a fun looking group!
After hiking around down by the river for a bit we headed back up to the town to get some coffee to warm up! We found a little cafe and got a table. I felt bad for the owner of the cafe because it was super busy and none of her workers could find parking. Leavenworth was cool but I would NOT return for the Holiday festivities unless I was on a bus. Parking was CRAZY. Actually everything was crazy. It took us an hour to find some place to sit and get some food and drinks around 2 PM. But I have digressed. The cafe owner was raving about her irish coffee (whiskey coffee). Liezel and I decided to try some and I'm glad we did! It was delicious!
After our irish coffee warm up, we decided to wonder around a bit more and started trying to find a place to eat lunch/watch the MLS cup. Chase was very excited to watch Sporting play! After a few rude people, a lot of crowds and some pushing we finally found a pub that wasn't so crowded. The guys wait for our table while Sonja, Liezel and I did some shopping, well looking around mostly. It was so hard to move around in the crowded little stores with so many people!
Lunch was tasty and we got to watch the Sporting game! Chase had to sweet talk the waitress to get her to turn it to the Sporting game. Interesting thing is that they were showing some skiing sports from who knows where previously. No one was watching it, but we still had to beg! Here are some fun pictures of Chase to prove it. I even got one of him making a face at the TV because Real Salt Lake almost scored on us.
After watching most of the game and drinking some yummy local beer it was pretty clear that the game was going to go into overtime. Liezel, Sonja and I left Huy and Chase at the pub watching the game while we went to look in the shops! We ended up finding some wine tasting. We bought some spiced wine to enjoy on Christmas. We are actually drinking it right now since I'm actually writing this on Christmas Eve. Opps!
After wine tasting and seeing Sporting KC win the MLS cup it was time for the actual Christmas tree lighting. I took a video of the tree lighting. I didn't end up getting very many good pictures. There were just too many people. I did however get an awesome video of Chase and I being silly. In short, the lights didn't go on right away and some that were already on went off! It was funny. We had just watched Christmas Vacation on the way to Leavenworth, so that is the explanation for my yelling at the end of the video. Chase insisted I post this ridiculousness.
The bus left at 6:15 and the tree lighting happened around 4:30. This gave us just enough time to grab a beer at Icicle brewery and a yummy soft pretzel for the bus ride home. The trip was really fun! I am definitely glad that we were on a bus and had friends to hang out with. We can't wait to go check out Leavenworth again during the summer!
