We woke up Saturday morning to a steady rain. The neighborhood was quiet. The table and chairs on the deck looked like an inviting place for morning coffee and a muffin. But this morning was unusually cool and wet for September in Leavenworth WA, so I started up the gas fireplace and got comfy in the living room. Scotte was up soon after I and we spent a leisurely morning planning our day.
Lazy Saturday morning
This is the second post about our recent trip to Leavenworth during the Washington State Autumn Leaf Festival. For the first post, which includes a full description and photos of our accommodations at the beautiful Bavarian Mountain Suite, click here.
The street outside the condo was soon blocked off from traffic, as the festival parade would be staging right outside our door. I also spent some time watching a city worker hanging festival banners from the street lights. We were loving staying right downtown in the heart of the village.
After breakfast we set out to explore the village. The weather was still cool and rainy. We dressed in layers and warm socks. We saw others throughout the day carrying umbrellas, but in spite of the steadiness of the rain, it wasn’t really coming down hard. We walked first up the alley to Front Street. It was fun to stroll the familiar sidewalks, check out some new businesses and scout out a spot from which we’d watch the parade later.
From the gallery we headed back to Front Street and enjoyed seeing all the visitors like us, getting the lay of the land. The street had been blocked off from parking the evening before. There wasn’t nearly the crowd there might have been, had the weather been drier, but there was a good crowd gathering and people had already staked out spots for watching the parade. We were fortunate to find a prime spot, under a cover out of the rain and at the end of Front Street where the parade would be turning to travel up toward the highway.
How long has it been since you watched a small-town parade? It’s been years for us. Boy is it fun! The Autumn Leaf Festival Grand Parade has it all… local and regional marching bands, vintage automobiles, horse drawn wagons, floats from far and wide, local civic leaders and beauty queens. In spite of the drizzle the crowd and the parade participants all seemed to be in good spirits. We were even able to sit for awhile while watching, thanks to some generous neighbors who gave up their spot on a bench to us. We had a wonderful time. If you have the opportunity to be in Leavenworth for the Washington State Autumn Leaf Festival Grand Parade, we highly recommend making time to take it in.
After the parade we made our way back to the condo to get the car and headed out to Snowy Owl Theater at Icicle Creek Center for the Arts. Since Renae is a theater professional in Spokane, and Scotte is a developer of theater management software, we were both eager to return to the theater and get a behind the scenes tour. What an amazing facility! We really enjoyed our tour with the technical services manager, Cameron. He very proudly showed us around the beautiful state-of-the-art facility. Snowy Owl seats 240 in a warm and inviting auditorium equipped with flexible seating and high tech sound and lighting equipment. The theater is optimized for live music and dance performances and can be used as a movie theater. It’s also designed to show live satellite feeds from the Metropolitan Opera’s Live HD broadcasts. It was easy to see how the Snowy Owl will become an important community center for arts performances in the Leavenworth area. You can read more about Snowy Owl, and its place in the arts community in this Seattle PI article. And check out this YouTube video for more photos of the theater and some information about the design and designers.
Andreas Keller
After our visit to Snowy Owl we ended our day with dinner at Andreas Keller. Scotte and I both love the schnitzel there. Scotte gets the traditional Schnitzel Weiner Art, breaded pork cutlet served with lemon (Scotte asks for extra lemon) and a side of German potato salad. Renae’s favorite is the Jaeger Schnitzel, a grilled pork cutlet served with brown mushroom gravy, spaetzl and red cabbage. You can ask for the breaded and fried cutlet in place of the grilled if you’d rather. Andreas Keller has live German music and has a traditional Rathskeller atmosphere. They feature imported German and local beers on tap. We were happy to be joining Andreas Keller in celebrating their owner, Heidi Forshemer, as Leavenworth’s Royal Lady of the Autumn Leaf. The Festival is celebrating its 50th year, and Ms. Forshemer has been representing Leavenworth all over the region throughout the community festival season. On this weekend Andreas Keller was offering drink and dessert specials to celebrate Heidi’s accomplishments.
By the time we finished dinner (with dessert to go) we’d had a full day and were ready to head back to our cozy condo on the edge of downtown. We started up the fireplace and put on our jammies and settled in for a quiet evening in our favorite home-away-from home.
The next day started leisurely. We had coffee and breakfast at the condo, then checked out and headed into the village to do a few more errands before we headed home to Spokane, via Wenatchee’s Pybus Market. We had a wonderful weekend in Leavenworth. Can’t wait till next time.
