Easily cresting Stevens Pass, we enjoy the downhill ride in our trusty ‘Westy’. We come to the town of Levenworth and pull in to check it out. A Bavarian Alp Village in the Cascades! ….what a surprise!

ALL the buildings and advertising signs are alpine-style, designed to look like the Bavarian Alps. Even the chain stores and hotels (McDonalds, Safeway, Napa Auto Parts, Howard Johnson, Comfort Inn, Starbucks) have complied with the Bavarian alpine theme. Flowers abound in hanging baskets and flower boxes all over town!

First, we drive through, amazed at this little Bavarian ‘Burg’; then decide to park our VW bus (it fits right in!) and go explore the town on foot. We stop at Starbucks for a cup of tea and a ginger cookie, sitting outside enjoying the setting, the scenery and the weather. The town is buzzing with tourists…probably more in this one place than all the tourists from the rest of our trip put together! We have fun wandering through a few of the shops..unique and different than we have seen before. We purchase a few post cards, then stop at “Viadolce” and sample ginger/lemoncello and ginger/almond gelato — tasty!

We’ve been strolling around for a couple of hours as if a spell has been cast on us. This is a delightful surprise and worth the time spent, but time that we have not planned on and now we are behind schedule. Schedule??? What schedule??!! Are we on a schedule??