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It would be accurate to say that the life I have been living here on the West Coast is pretty fast paced. Not to say that I am rushing from place to place, but I always seem to have something going on. I'm happy about this, but every now and then it is nice to have an excuse to not do much of anything. This past weekend afforded me that, with a relaxing weekend at Valley Camp (about 45 minutes east of Seattle) with Dave's family.
We left on Friday night, with one epic stop at XXX Burger. I had been hearing about this place basically since my arrival, and all expectations were met. XXX is a diner set up like it is out of the 1950's. There was memorabilia from that decade all over the walls. "Grease" was even playing on a big screen plasma television. Well, I assume that they call it XXX Burger because the portions are as obscene as a movie of that genre. The bun itself was the size of a cheap, promotional frisbee. I don't remember the name of what I ordered, but it had a burger, several hot dogs, thick sliced bacon, and an entire salad. All on a bed of curly fries! I noticed as we left that the front door had a sign which said, "WARNING! Nothing that you eat or drink here is good for you." Hats off to that! And yes, I finished the whole thing.
Miserable, we made it to Valley Camp after dark. The camp is a retreat center, and Hope Lutheran, the church which Dave's family attends and his father works at, comes each summer. It is located in a valley (who would have thought) and I loved waking up on Saturday morning, making some coffee, and looking up at the mist rolling over the tops of the mountains. We read, played games, ate a lot of food, drank a lot of coffee, did some hiking, and had a campfire Saturday night. I even got to sleep in my tent, which I had been hoping to do for several weeks here now. I could have stayed for a week.
Of course, that wasn't possible. Besides, there was one more experience to be had: Leavenworth. Leavenworth is a town about 140 miles outside of Seattle, and it was my first trip to the east side of the mountains. The place is done up to be a traditional Bavarian town. As the story goes, one day a store decided to change it's architecture to reflect the Bavarian style. It was such a hit with tourists that the mayor decided that all shops in the city should be modeled like this. Turns out it worked.
In my opinion, you can always tell a tourist trap by the amount shops selling salt water taffy and trinkets with peoples names on them. As I recall, there were several which fit this profile. I had a lot of fun though. We ate brats and kielbasa with lots of sauerkraut, and just toured around the shops. The weather was sunny and warm, and we had nowhere to be. A great end to a great weekend.
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