Over the river, through the mountains and snow we traveled yesterday to a small town named Leavenworth. It's styled after the old Bavarian villages. All of the store fronts and fonts on the signs and such. You could practically add "Ye Olde" to most signs and it would have been totally appropriate. But we weren't the only ones with this quaint little plan. This lil' burg was SWARMING with people!!
You wouldn't believe the cold. Well, with the mounds of snow and sledding, yes I guess you could. Seeing all of the snow on the sides of these roads and mountains thinking. If it all came down, that would be a bad way for a Texan to go out...
But here's an example of those "ye olde" signs.
But it was a cute little town filled with shops with items like Nutcrackers, beer steins and other old world goodies, and even a hat store, that was apparently quite the rage, stocking hats as diverse as old style conductor and bowler hats to big christmas trees for the top of your head! The insane thing about this store, however, was the line way out the door! Who knew stupid hats were so popular? Or these crazy cat figurines for that matter? (I hope I am actually very wrong)
As the sun set on this (faux) old town the wandering and cold had gotten to us, and we headed inside for very nice Italian dinner, opting out of the street vendor kielbasa and elk burgers for finer dining. But not before snapping this beautiful shot:
Now dark, we waddled back into the streets for some last minute shopping for loved ones before we headed out onto the dangerous now dark snowy mountain passes. Intermittently stopping for great photo ops, we drank coffee and harassed the tourists. All in good fun.
Trudging with icy bricks for fingers and toes we made our way back to the frozen car and began the long, dark journey back to Seattle and said Auf Weidersein to the little Bavarian village.
Happy Holidays Gentle Viewers!
