We had a beautiful drive from Idaho to Lake Chelan, Washington on Friday, September 5.
First we drove through acres and acres of golden wheat fields.
Then we stopped at the Grand Coulee Dam along the way. What a difference from Hoover Dam. It is so much wider (almost a mile). It dams up Lake Roosevelt which is over 150 miles long with 600 miles of shoreline. There were 11 towns flooded when the dam was built.
These are from the Lake side of the dam.
This is the huge Grand Coulee Dam.
We also saw two other dams and learned that there are actually 29 dams on the Columbia River system. We had no idea it was such a sophisticated system.
After the second dam we then drove into “apple country”.
The trees are loaded and almost ready for picking. At some of the orchards there were large boxes all stacked up and waiting to be filled. At some others the boxes had already been distributed throughout the orchard.
It was delightful to drive through the country and see field after field, row after row and tree after tree laden with fruit. We were able to see some workers picking, boxes of apples being moved from the orchards and then trucks on the road hauling the apples “to market”. It was fascinating. We also saw vineyards, cherry trees (already picked), peaches and nectarines. We bought a box of peaches for $12 that probably had 70 – 75 peaches. We have been eating them all week. We also bought some pluots. They are a cross between a plum and an apricot. After seeing all this fruit it sure would be something to be here when the trees are in blossom.
The dams on the rivers are the way that the land and trees are irrigated. It is very dry unless watered so everything is irrigated. We stayed in a timeshare on Lake Chelan for the week. 
This lake is 55 miles long and ranges from ½ mile to 2 miles wide. We rode “The Lady of the Lake II” (a 280 passenger boat) from Chelan to Stehekin, literally from the south end to the north end and back. 
It is about 4 hours each way and we had about 2 hours in Stehekin. We learned that there are about 80 permanent residents in Stehekin. There are quite a few more during the summer when the North Cascades National Park adds to their staff. This is one of the glaciers in the park and the only one that can be seen from the lake.
This lake is 55 miles long and ranges from ½ mile to 2 miles wide. We rode “The Lady of the Lake II” (a 280 passenger boat) from Chelan to Stehekin, literally from the south end to the north end and back. It is about 4 hours each way and we had about 2 hours in Stehekin. We learned that there are about 80 permanent residents in Stehekin. There are quite a few more during the summer when the North Cascades National Park adds to their staff. This is one of the glaciers in the park and the only one that can be seen from the lake.
We spent a day in Leavenworth which is the closest fully Bavarian town we have seen in the United States. We had a great German lunch, browsed through the shops and took some pictures.
This was an unusual formation that we saw beside the river. 
Another day Bob was blessed (I say that lovingly) to take the van in again (3rd time) to see if they could find the leak in the floor of the passenger side. Praise the Lord they were able to find something and did a patch. They recommended that we take it to a body shop to have it fixed better. We just have to deal with Chrysler to find out where to take it.
It has been an interesting week with my sciatic pain. My ankle started hurting again and we can’t figure out why. We are now assuming that it is because of the steps in our unit. Instead of regular stairs we have a spiral staircase between the kitchen, living/dining room (up) and our bedroom (down).
It is also unique because there is actually a door to the outside from both the upstairs and the down. So what I started doing the last couple of days was going outside and walking up the regular stairs and coming back into our unit that way. It is the only thing that is really different and my ankle is swelling again so we have been icing it. We still manage to walk in the mornings. The nights have been in the mid 50’s but it is in the mid 80’s during the day. It is just ideal weather for us.
We went to a great farmer’s market and got some fresh fruit and vegetables. One day we saw all these sailboats on the lake. We don’t know what they were doing but we enjoyed watching them.
I will stop with a note to let folks know that we do not have phone or internet access next week. We will be in the mountains near Glacier, Washington on the back side of Mt. Baker.
It has been an interesting week with my sciatic pain. My ankle started hurting again and we can’t figure out why. We are now assuming that it is because of the steps in our unit. Instead of regular stairs we have a spiral staircase between the kitchen, living/dining room (up) and our bedroom (down).
It is also unique because there is actually a door to the outside from both the upstairs and the down. So what I started doing the last couple of days was going outside and walking up the regular stairs and coming back into our unit that way. It is the only thing that is really different and my ankle is swelling again so we have been icing it. We still manage to walk in the mornings. The nights have been in the mid 50’s but it is in the mid 80’s during the day. It is just ideal weather for us.We went to a great farmer’s market and got some fresh fruit and vegetables. One day we saw all these sailboats on the lake. We don’t know what they were doing but we enjoyed watching them.
I will stop with a note to let folks know that we do not have phone or internet access next week. We will be in the mountains near Glacier, Washington on the back side of Mt. Baker.
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