Leavenworth with Desert Trails Friends

After 6 weeks under the flight path of the Portland Airport we were excited to be on the road.    Friends Kirsten and Cline organized a reunion for the Washington Desert Trails folks.   We stayed at Wenatchee River County Park which is a very nice facility.    $26/day for full hook ups, nice size sites, free wifi and a lovely day use area right on the river.    The only draw back was some road noise but after the airport traffic it wasn't an issue for us.  And the weather was HOT!   90 + everyday but fortunately the nights were nice and cool.

The hot weather didn't slow us down though.    We started the reunion with a wine tasting party at K & C's place.    Lots of fun wine to taste and appetizers to munch on.   There were 11 of us and we all had more wine than we needed... but not more than we wanted ;-))   The next day was tubing the Wenatchee river from the bridge to Blackbird Island.    Then we all met at Rock Island campground, 14 miles up the Icicle River for a hike and picnic.    The elevation is higher there so it was 10 degrees cooler than Leavenworth.    Lots of fun and good food.

The last day 4 of us hiked to the petroglyphs about a mile up the Wenatchee from the old red bridge.   On the way back we had the surprise of the trip.   A young black bear was watching us from about 10 feet away.    Another hiker told us he was there or we may have missed him altogether.   I headed the other direction, but our nutty friend Kirsten grabbed the camera and went bear hunting.   The bear headed down the bank to the river to get away from the crazy lady but she managed to snap one.    If you look close you can see him in the last picture.