We woke up early on Friday morning in order to catch the boat to Stehekin at 8 am, shuffled our belongings around according to the ferry's strict baggage policy, and checked out of our wonderful room. It looked like we had packed enough to live out of suitcases for a month—that crazy old woman from the movie Labyrinth comes to mind—but we had to bring quite a bit of food with us. Stehekin has no grocery store and only two restaurants; with Tula's dairy-free diet, we figured we had better be prepared.Thanks to a good friend who loaned me her Ergo carrier (best baby carrier ever!), I was able to contain Tula for the 2 1/2 hour boat ride (and that's the express trip, the other boat takes 4 hours). Alden did surprisingly well, too. He did a little drawing, listened to an ipod for a while, and folded a bunch of origami shapes.
The ride up was breathtaking. Lake Chelan is only about two miles wide, but it's over fifty miles long, and the scenery changes drastically along the way. At the south end of the lake, it's sandy and arid, but the sandy beaches soon transform in to rocky cliffs and dense forests. Here's a little geography nugget for you too; Chelan is the third deepest lake in North America, after Crater Lake and Tahoe.
We landed in Stehekin, a town of about 95 residents that is situated at the source of Lake Chelan, around lunch time so we grabbed a quick bite at Stehekin Landing before heading up to our cabin. We booked a newer cabin that was built by the owners of the Stehekin Pastry Company (which was featured in an issue of Martha Stewart Living). The cabin was about 100 yards from the bakery, which was a little added bonus!
The owners had left a car at the landing for us to borrow for the weekend. Stehekin only has one road that runs along the edge of the lake and up into the river valley. Most people travel by bike, so there's not a lot of cars around. We didn't think we'd be able to take the kids' carseats with us on the boat, so we just buckled them into the back seat old fashion style. They thought it was the best thing ever! Alden thought that the Subaru Forrester that we cruised around in was the coolest car ever.
Our cabin was a lovely two-story two bedroom house with no phones and no wi-fi—what a fantastic break from technology! Outside our windows dozens of butterflies fluttered around, and across a short field was a corral with four or five horses.
We settled in and I put Tula down for her nap and I took a nap too, which is a rare treat for me! Patrick and Alden went out to explore the valley. They drove up to Rainbow Falls and threw rocks into the Stehekin river. Then they headed back to the bakery to get ice cream cones. That night we headed back to the Landing for dinner. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was much more upscale than I would have expected for such a small, mountain town—white tablecloths and all.
After eating, Alden wanted to do more exploring and was sad to find out that it was already bedtime. We indulged him in one game of "Sharks and Minnows" which is just his fancy version of freeze tag where you get to put a wash cloth in your back pocket and pretend to be a cold-blooded predator. Then, off to bed for the kids, and a great evening of wine and board games for us.
It was a great beginning, and we had so much planned for the next day...
oh, and after sifting through photos, it seems that Patrick never let the camera out of his hands until three days into the trip, so no pictures of him until tomorrow :(
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