Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Long Time gone, part II


So we arrived in Wenatchee.  Fruit picking was happening almost 24 hours per day.  It does bring up a very interesting thought regarding who is picking the fruit.  There certainly weren't many anglo-saxons lining up for the picking jobs - and there were 'help wanted' signs aplenty.  But some still want to whine about the influx of migrant workers.  Hmmmm.  And who will do the work?  Enough of that 'rant'.  So found two sights at one of our favorite state parks, Lincoln Rock.  Amazingly, even after the 'high' season, where reservations are required 9 months in advance (literally), we had to search for 2 together.
Really lovely, very well kept-up park, with grassy sites, with lots of lovely trees.  After a movie and popcorn evening, the next morning we headed up to Ohme Gardens.  It seems that Mrs. Ohme wanted a nice backyard, and so her husband began an effort to transform a hillside into something so unique.  Perched atop a rocky, barren hill, he hauled up dirt, plants and water from the Columbia River to transform it into a real show piece.  (I was impressed, can you tell?)
On the left (above) is a "before" scene. That is the Columbia River, and the green along the river are fruit orchards, aplenty.  Afterwards:



After a fun wander around, we headed into the town of Wenatchee and found a charming farmer's market, where we bought fruit (of course) and vegetables and a very nice lunch on the back deck.  I did find a quilt store, but will show you that in a bit.  We then headed up into the Cascade mountains, to the town of Leavenworth.  Another city that had been seeing itself dwindling, so re-made itself into a Bavarian outpost.  And now, a huge tourist draw.  We stayed in one of our favorite RV parks, right on the Icicle River.
[that really was about the BEST site in the whole park - weren't we so lucky?]  It turns out that there were 12 of us there for the week-end.  
Perfect spot for morning coffee.  On Saturday morning we headed to the very small town of Plain (about 30 minutes away) for their Saturday farmers market.  There may have been five stalls.

But we found flowers, fruit, vegetables and some even found some enormous cinnamon rolls.  I was able to get,

Small, new crop HoneyCrisp apples - perfect for lunch boxes

Bartlett and d'anjou pears (20 lbs)

a little taste treat
I suspect the 12 of us made a real difference in their sales.  Dinner that night included waldorf salad and a huge green salad, with the sweetest cherry tomatoes.  Makes my mouth water just remembering it.  And so Sunday we drove home, avoiding the storms of later in the day.  What a great journey.  [one more blog post to come]

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