The alarm went off and we got up around 9ish. We got dressed for the day and started making our breakfast. We looked through the cupboards to find the mixing bowls, flying pans and the other cookware we might need. It was like playing a scavenger hunt just to make breakfast. Ben worked on the French toast, and I did the eggs and sausage. We bought liquid eggs because we weren't sure if we'd use an entire dozen eggs and those would be hard to travel back home with. I've never used liquid eggs before, so I wasn't sure if you had to cook them differently or not. I guess we'll find out!
We finished making our food, pulled out plates, cups and silverware, divvied up the food and went to the table to feast on our masterpiece. It was pretty good except for the eggs...they had a grit consistency. I think I may have over stirred them. Oh well. We finished our food, put our dishes in the sink (we will do them later) and finished getting ready for our day. I asked Ben if I needed to take anything specific with me and he said no.
We hopped in the Edge and headed into town...the back way to avoid the bridge construction. We knew we couldn't get around the parking issue, so we found a lot and paid $10 for all day. They told us if we needed to leave and come back that it would be fine as long as there were spots available. That was good to know because Ben said that we had to leave at least once.
We started with Chris (Mc3cat's) Adventure Lab that took us around town answering questions on the many murals of Leavenworth. Since there were only five waypoints spread around town, it didn't take us long to complete it.
Then we started on Ben's Adventure Lab, It's About Time! A Leavenworth Historical Lab. He's been working on it for at least a year. He let me lead the way as we made our way through it. He set it up to where when I completed each waypoint, it would give me a few letters to unscramble at the end. I wrote those letters down in a notebook. A cacher had already completed it that morning and was probably confused but there was a reason why it was set up that way.
We walked to our first stop which was the Wenatchee River Institute as known as the River Haus. I opened the app to see what I had to answer. I found the answer and I chose to walk around the informational trail being goofy. We walked all the way down to the Wenatchee River just to see what was down there. It was a pretty nice area for sitting, swimming and eating food. I will have to keep this area in mind the next time we come to Leavenworth in the summer.
We walked back to the middle of town and did the Hotel Edelweiss waypoint. I opened the app and answered the question. Ben said we should probably go do the ski hill one before town gets busier and we were not able to get our parking spot back. We walked back to the parking lot and got in the Edge. Ben said we could do the grange one before we left town. He pulled over in a parking spot near one of the hotels across the street and I went and did it quickly. I got it answered and jumped into the Edge with him while we drove north of town to the Ski Hill Lodge. I had no idea this was even up here but then there was a reason why I didn't know. Whenever we came to Leavenworth, we stayed in town so anything outside of town was unknown.
It was a short drive and when we got there, no one was hardly there so finding parking was easy. There was a guy who was walking his dog but that was about it. I opened the question and made our way to the lodge. Ben said that the lady he was talking to about this spot was supposed to have a new informational board, but it wasn't up yet. He was able to have people answer a question anyway and hoped that the lady would have the board up soon. We walked back to the Edge and made our way into town. Our parking spot was still available.
Our last stop was the Greater Leavenworth Museum, which was moved into town so more people would stop by and visit it. We actually got to meet the lady who worked with Ben on his Adventure Lab project. His information was historically accurate. We briefly chatted with her while we paid our entrance fee. She was happy to have finally met Ben in person. She handed us a book called Leavenworth Then, Leavenworth Now! (1996) by Honi Roberts, for free. We thanked her for the kind gift.
We spent the next half hour browsing through the museum. I found out that Leavenworth used to be called Icicle, which is pretty cool. They should have kept the name. It was a booming logging town, which is pretty much what all towns did in Central and Western Washington back during the turn of the century. That and mining. It created lots of jobs, brought the railroad through town, buildings and houses started being built. Life was good in this small Eastern Washington town.
Soon, with the creation of Hwy 2 and better vehicles, people were getting jobs elsewhere, making this small-town sort of obsolete. This was a common thing once highways and major interstates started to change the way people traveled, dined and stayed. Fires destroyed most of the wood buildings in the early years of the century and most of the downtown blocks were rebuilt with bricks. In the 1950's, most of the storefronts were empty and the town's economy was suffering.
By the 1960's, Ted Price and Bob Rodgers came to the rescue. They bought two properties and remodeled them into a Bavarian motif. Soon other businesses followed but with some slight hesitation. They weren't sure if they should put a ton of money into remodeling, but they did anyway in hope that they bought into something that was going to be profitable in the long run. It was a huge risk, but the remodel of the town soon brought money into the small community with tourism and over time they were able to expand and improve the facilities and add festivals throughout the years. Just ask Woody Goomsba.
A lot of hard work and persistence makes Leavenworth of what it is today. 2.5 million visitors worldwide visit this tourist destination every year all because of an idea to remodel the town after a German inspired theme.
We finished up the walk through the museum with artifacts from the Ski Hill section of the building. Ski Hill was pretty famous in the early 30's into the 50's and even had some ski jumpers represent the US in the Olympics. We thanked her once again before we left and headed into the middle of town. By this point Ben was acting a little strange and I knew he was up to something. The gazebo in the middle of town was being used by a German band so he walked me to the side where he sat me down to work on the several letters, I gathered from each of the waypoints we visited on the Adventure Lab.
I sat there looking at the letters and honestly thought it was a code for the next step I would have to complete. I didn't realize it was the end. I started to unscramble them, and I knew what it said. Ben grabbed the ring box out of his pocket, got on one knee and asked me to marry him. Of course, I told him yes. We exchanged hugs and kisses. I put the ring on my finger and Ben got a few pictures of me with it. He promised his Mom and other people we'd have photos of the occasion.
"She said yes, let's go get some fucking beer!"
But first,
He thought about taking us on a horse carriage ride through Leavenworth, but we didn't have cash on us, which was fine, so instead we had a caricature of us drawn by one of the artists in town. We thought it made more sense to do that because back in 2015 we had one drawn of us at the Puyallup Fair. We sat in chairs, had our faces drawn, gave them a tip and paid at the next tent over. We took a few more pictures in town and then went to Icicle Brewing to celebrate our engagement!
We went inside and purchased two beers with a pretzel and cheese. I bought a pint glass and a sticker...mostly to commemorate this moment. I had a Dirtyface Amber, and Ben had the Crosscut Pilsner as we ate our pretzel with cheese. We needed a snack to tie us over until dinner. As we sat there, we talked about some of the wedding ideas we've had prior to getting engaged and if we had any more ideas to add to the list. Ben posted the first picture to Facebook to see if anyone noticed the ring on my finger. One person did right away, haha!
We finished our beer and food and decided to walk around downtown for a little while. Ben bought his sister a Friends themed shirt, I found a Rainier Beer Sasquatch shirt for Doug and some stickers for myself and others as gifts. Then we went over to Blewett Brewery to have one more beer to celebrate. We both had the Fool's Gold Pale Ale, and I liked how crisp it was. We walked around town some more after we were done.
We walked to the Hills Are Alive (GC4QEDW) so Ben could find and log that one. I had already found it several years ago when we came for the Christmas lighting in December 2018.
I decided that Ben needed to finish the webcam cache, Bavarian Village (GCJHC9). He said he did it several years ago but didn't log it and had no idea where that picture was. I told him I did it back in March of 2011 when we came over for the Wenatchee Cache Machine. We agreed to take one together and he would log it for that day with that picture.
We walked to the parking lot and hopped in the Edge. I asked Ben if we could find a few more caches around town and he said sure. We found Back Alley Rock (GC417A1) and couldn't find Frankie Goes to Leavenworth (GC7XXJ3) because the container was missing. We drove to the other side of town to grab Link (GC920JN) and Willkommen (GC86DTM) where we posed as a newly engaged couple because it was at the east end Leavenworth sign and felt it was appropriate. We decided to get two more on our way back to the chalet on the back road.
We pulled into the public boat launch area, found a place to park and walked to Millpond (GC88PT1). We followed the trail and got to near ground zero. I wasn't sure what we were looking for, but it had a lot of favorite points. I really didn't think it was going to be beyond the no trespassing sign, so I didn't bother looking over that way. Ben wanted to go check that area, so I let him go to inspect it. He pulled something off of a pipe sticking out the ground and told me that it was it. I asked, then why is it beyond the no trespassing sign? He shrugged. We signed our names and put it back the way we found it. We walked to the other one in the boat launch area.
The Fly vs. Me (GC7XARG) also had a bunch of favorite points. Again, we really weren't sure what we were looking for. I thought it was going to be a plastic toy fly stuck on a bison tube hanging from one of the trees it was zeroing in on. We searched the grouping of trees for a little bit longer and found a fly swatter on the back of one of the trees. I could tell you I've never found a fly swatter geocache until that day. We put our names on the logbook and put it back. We went back to the Edge and drove back to the Chalet for the evening.
Once there, I logged the caches we found and then started making dinner. Ben made the chicken we bought yesterday on the grill out front while I heated up the corn and the mashed potatoes. We had to eat all of it because we would have no way to bring it home. When it was done, we each had two pieces of chicken, the corn and mashed potatoes while we hung out.
I did stuff on my computer for a bit, looked up some hikes in the area, we did some of the dishes and watched National Treasure 1 and 2. I did some Instagramming--because I needed to catch up, we had some of our ice cream later and then went to bed around 1 a.m.
Leavenworth Trip: Icicle Gorge Trail Hike, Wenatchee BBQ, Geocaching and Hot Tub
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