Man, Levenworth WA is a really great little town…we wish we could spend some more time here as the scenery is great, the food wonderful, the hikes outstanding, and it’s generally a really nice place.

We woke up this morning to some light drizzle but it was scheduled to end by 1100 so we had coffee and Neil baked some Cinnamon Buns for breakfast. After that we packed up a lunch and headed out for a hike at the Icicle Creek Gorge about 20 miles or so from here. 

Our first stop was about half way up the gorge to the trailhead…all of the water shots in this post are different views of either Icicle Creek or one of it’s small tributaries.

Then we headed out on our hike. This was a four mile loop hike essentially right up and down the banks of Icicle Creek. We started with a half mile down stream, then crossed to the left (west) side of the stream and headed upstream for 2 miles, then crossing back to the east side and a mile and a half back to the parking area.

Neil especially liked this one…the layers in the rocks were really striking.

This was the largest waterfall we spotted on our hike; again note the really cool layers in the rocks on the side.

About a mile into our hike we stopped for lunch at a little overlook with a wall we could sit on while we ate. Connie spotted this cloud hugging the peaks so Neil grabbed a quick shot.

After lunch we continued on up the path; here’s a shot of a cedar swamp area and also of some sort of strange mushroom/fungus thing we saw on the side of a cedar.

Right as we began our hike we ran into an Australian couple a few years older than us…they are on a year long round the world trip and are staying in a series of houses that they arranged to house swap with people from around the world. As we were proceeding clockwise around the loop they went the other way…we met them about halfway around and stopped to chat for 10 or 15 minutes about traveling and the mysteries of life on the road. Neil got some shots of some pretty wildflowers that Connie saw.

At the farthest north end of our hike we snapped a couple of photos of the waterfall under the bridge we were about to cross.

After this we headed downstream on the east side of the creek the last mile and a half or so back to the parking lot. Along the way we happened across a bunch of breeding male Western Tanagers; they were all displaying, fighting, and competing for the attention of a female likely located nearby.

Shortly after these we arrived back at the parking lot and headed home. After a quick shower we headed into town for dinner; we were looking for Schnitzel ad Spatezel. Our first choice Ludwigs turned out to have 1 person in it and it smelled funny so we left. Our second choice which according to Yelp reviews had the best Schnitzel in town actually didn’t have it at all…but we didn’t figure that out until we tried to order some. So; we had a couple of beers and split a Brat for appetizer on the rooftop terrace looking out over the town and mountains…all was good. After that we headed out for our third choice…Andreas Keller Restaurant and it turned out to be truly outstanding. We had some German Liebframulch wine and listened to the live music by the accordion player while we ordered. Connie had Jaegerschnitzel which was grilled pork served with mushroom sauce, spatezel, and red cabbage. Neil chose the Schnitzel cordon Bleu which was pork cutlet stuffed with ham and cheese then fried to it was golden brown and delicious. It was served with cream sauce and spatezel. Both were really good and there were no leftovers. We debated having dessert…there was German Layer Cake and Nutella Cheesecake (both fresh made) on the dessert tray but decided we were too full so we headed home for recliner and TV instead.

We would definitely return to Leavenworth; it’s a truly nice town and there is clearly a lot more to do than we had time for in our 3 days here. Tomorrow we’re off after breakfast and coffee headed for the Travelcamp at Fort Lewis WA which is an Army base in Tacoma south of Seattle. We’ve got another Saint Saëns concert on Sunday afternoon, have to pick up our package with our new RV sign from the base, and will have some fun stuff later on next week. We’ll be at Fort Lewis for 10 days and will likely spend at least a couple of them for Connie to work and to recover from our trip to Canada…we ended up acting a lot more like we were in go go go vacation mode than we normally do with very few days to just rest and relax…we keep reminding ourselves we are RETIRED and don’t need to be on a deadline…but i’s hard to remember.

Cyas.