I had never been to Leavenworth. For those of you who don't know, Leavenworth is a small "Bavarian" town nestled into Central Washington. It is about a 2 hour drive from where we live. I had never really had an interest in seeing it. I could not imagine why someone would think a Bavarian town would work in the middle of Washington state. I thought it would look cheesy and misplaced. I was wrong....very wrong. It is tucked into the base of some of the largest, most ominous looking mountains I have ever seen. You follow the river in and then you are surrounded by the mountains. It is perfect. You have no idea how completely committed to their theme the town is until you see it. Gas stations, Safeway, every single storefront no matter what it might contain; they all look completely Bavarian. The people working were dressed in Bavarian fashions as well.
So why did I decide to go now? Afterall, I had lived 33 years without seeing it, and thought I was missing nothing. Well, we had to go to Wenatchee for Cassadie's swim meet (Wenatchee is 30 minutes from Leavenworth). It happened to be the same weekend as Leavenworth's Christmas Lighting event. Most of the families from the team were going, and so we thought we might as well go. Apparently, people come from all over the country and world to see them turn on Christmas lights! The main street is completely shut down to cars and packed full of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder.
The lighting event was kicked off with four men playing these strange looking horns. They sounded much like a french horn, but very loud.
There was a gazebo in the park with a lady announcing the event, a choir, and an orchestra, all dressed perfectly in their Bavarian attire. They sang and played Christmas Carols the entire time we were there.
They even did a Bavarian countdown to the lighting of the shopfronts. I couldn't repeat it even if I wanted to, it was very strange, like numbers coupled with strange shouting.
I mentioned the mountains earlier, if you look at the backgrounds of these pictures you get an idea of just how huge and close they are. They were really breathtaking.
You would think with soooo many people crammed into such a small town, there would be problems. It was actually quite the opposite, people were extremely generous and polite. I stopped a couple to ask what a roasted chestnut tastes like (yes they were roasted on an open fire) and they gave me one of theirs to taste. It was interesting, like a fresh walnut in texture, but less flavorful. I was trying to take a self-portrait of the four of us, and kept cutting off Jarod's head. I must have taken three when a couple stopped and offered to help. The man took the best picture.
So, it was a great experience, Leavenworth has won me over. The only thing our experience lacked was snow, that would have made it perfect. It was definitely cold enough for snow (Jack Frost nipping at your nose). I would go back...maybe not just for this event though. I would go if I happened to be in the area again, but I wouldn't take my family all the way up there just for this. It might be nice to see in the summer.
