Lake Chelan

The Riverwalk behind our hotel in Chelan

Sandy and I wanted to take a vacation this summer. Because of the pandemic, we hadn't arranged a big trip so we looked at what we could do closer to home. Our first thought was to go to the Okanagon Valley in Canada. We could do some hiking, play some golf and visit some wineries. We could drive, so it didn't matter that we hadn't planned out the trip many months before. We looked at the area around Kelowna BC and it looked like fun. When we finally started to map out the trip, it turned out that it did involve a lot of driving. We were breaking in a new dogsitter and we didn't want to be gone for too long. Then we had the idea to visit the southern part of the Okanagon valley that extends down into the US. It was a lot closer so less there was less driving but still fun stuff to do. We had passed through the towns of Winthrop and Twisp on our way home from Canada back in 2016. At the time, I said that we would like to go back to visit there sometime. Well, that time was now.

It took a couple of days but I got our arrangements made. We would spend several days in Mazama, the very last town before North Cascades National Park. Then we would spend a couple of nights in Chelan, on the shores of Lake Chelan. We would end by taking the ferry across the lake and spending a night in Stehekin. We were lucky to get a room there. It's at the far end of the lake, fifty miles from Chelan, with no road access. There is only one small lodge. When I checked availability everything was booked except one room on one night. It was obviously a cancellation and I grabbed it and designed the rest of the trip around it.

A black lab fetching a stick in the river

Sadly, Sandy's dad died after a long illness about a week before we were scheduled to leave. She had just got back to Boise after spending a week visiting her parents in Wisconsin. When Sandy went back again we assumed that we would just have to cancel our vacation. It turned out that when I called the hotels, most were willing to make changes. By shifting most of our time before Stehekin to after it, we were able to make it work. We were lucky the people were so agreeable. We left when Sandy got back from Wisonsin again.

The drive to Chelan was shorter than I expected, only seven and a half hours. We cut up east of the tri cities and through Moses Lake, a part of Washington I hadn't been through before. The route was fairly intricate, but easy enough to follow with the help of Google Maps. I have to admit to being surprised by the BIG drop to the Columbia River coming from the east, just before we reached Chelan. The Cascades are to the west but there really aren't mountains to the east. It's just that the river is in a really big hole in the ground.

Things didn't go so smoothly after we reached Chelan. We were staying at The Landing, a boutique hotel right in downtown Chelan. It's only a few steps from both the lake shore and the river that is the outlet from the lake. They didn't have a parking lot, so after driving by we had to hunt for a parking spot. We found one a block away. We took a few things with us and figured we could drive by the hotel later to drop off our suitcases if necessary.

The line for ice cream - hopeless

We walked to the hotel, which had a restautant/bar and an ice cream shop on the ground floor...and nothing else. No hotel lobby! We asked the hostess in the restaurant where the check in was and she said she had no idea. Ok, this was weird. I called the number for the hotel and no one answered. I left a voice mail but we were beginning to get worried. A few minutes later I got a call back. Apparently I was supposed to get an email with an access code for our room. There was no check in. When I explained that I didn't get an email, she texted me the code. With that, we were able to get into our room.

With everything figured out, we walked just down the block and had our usual late lunch/early dinner at a place called Hangar 138. They had a few tables outside on the sidewalk and they had all been full when we had walked by before. Now they were all empty so we grabbed a spot. W enjoyed the food and it was a good spot for people watching. It reminded me of eating on Orchard Road in Singapore. There are certainly crowds of people walking around Chelan on a Saturday afternoon in July.

Sunset at Lake Chelan

After dinner we walked around. The riverfront was nice but nothing special. I'd say I like walking on the Boise Greenbelt more. The lakeshore was lined with hotels with fenced off grounds so it was hard to even get to the lake on foot, at least here in town. And there were way too many people. Like our visit to Redfish Lake earlier this summer, it's a nice place that has been totally overrun with people and spoiled.

After our walk, we moved our car to a spot right in front of the hotel. There were so many people in front at the ice cream place on the first floor, we could barely get in. Some people at a table outside were actually blocking the door and I had to ask one of them to get up and move so we could get in. He was apologetic and moved his chair out of the way. I would have sworn it was Gabe Newell, the founder of Valve. It was a long time ago, but I used to work with him when he was a project manager at Microsoft. Yes, I knew him when.

Once we were in, we went upstairs to our room and watched the Brewer game. That was fun. Milwaukee beat Colorado 9-4. The whole time I wanted to go downstairs to get an ice cream. I figured it had to be good if there were so many people, including billionaires. Unfortunately there was always a long line. I kept looking out the window but even at ten at night there was still a crowd. I finally gave up. Right in front of our hotel must have been the place to be. At 1 am I heard something and looked out. There were about ten young women there, who had probably just come out of the bar. Sandy suspected it was a bachelorette party. There was a man talking to them, and he sounded rather stern. I think he was from the bar/restaurant and was chasing them away because the place had closed. Next morning Sandy found vomit in several places in the street near our car. It must have been quite a party.

Like I said. Too many people.