Weekend Expedition

We had a rather awesome weekend for a change - we went with Jenny's dad and aunt Joan up to Leavenworth, and then hiked to Heather Creek to go garnet hunting. Leavenworth is a very cool touristy type place made up to look like a German town, with lots of little shops and themed restuarants (even the McDonalds looks "Bavarian", although I forgot to take a picture of it).

They picked us up from our apartment around 8am Saturday morning, and we got up to Leavenworth around 12:30-1:00 or so. We also stopped at Grand Coulee on the way to see the Dry Falls, and took some pictures.

After finding a room at the Linderhof Inn, and eating lunch at a place called Gustavs, we drove for another hour or so up to the trailhead and walked quite a ways (not sure how far) till we found a spot where we could get down to the water. Jenny's dad spent quite a while walking up and down the creek, looking for a spot to look for garnets, while Jenny and I took pictures of the area. He eventually found a good spot and came back with a decent assortment of garnets of various sizes.

We got back home around 8:00, cleaned ourselves up, and went to dinner at a restuarant called Kristall's. I'm not sure when we finally turned in, but we were all quite exhausted from the long day of hiking and climbing around the rocks.

We checked out of the hotel the next morning around 10:00 and spent the next 2 hours checking out the shops in town. We didn't buy much (not having much in the way of disposable income), but we did pick up a couple of souvenirs and Jenny bought some surprisingly reasonably priced clothes.

We left a little after Noon, and got back home around 4:00, where we promptly collapsed after making it inside the apartment. All in all, it was a whole lot of fun, and a well deserved vacation for the two of us. Jenny's dad is already talking about taking another weekend trip up to Heather Creek relatively soon, and I for one would love to spend a lot more time walking around Leavenworth, so hopefully that will happen sometime soon.

Pictures will be posted soon....