An annual event in this silly and wonderful family I've married into is attending Oktoberfest in Leavenworth. I feel a bit of background about Leavenworth is in order for those of you who aren't familiar with it.
Leavenworth was a little timber and rail town in central Washington. It survived for decades on the Great Northern Railroad and a local sawmill, but things changed in the 30s when the Great Northern pulled out of Leavenworth and the sawmill closed and the logging industry went away. There wasn't a lot left and the town hovered on extinction for years.
Finally, in the early 60s, the town remade itself into a little Bavarian village in hopes of making itself a tourist town. It worked pretty darned well. They had a lot going for them: the hills surrounding parts of the town look fairly Alpine and the entire town has been redone with Bavarian gingerbread on pretty much everything that'll stand still.
There are always something going on in Leavenworth: Christkindlmarkt, Yule lighting, and an Ice Fest in winter, Polka-Rama and Maifest in spring, and lots and lots of art fests, choral and music concerts, speakers on all kinds of topics, and, of course, Oktoberfest. All of these are a draw and the Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce is working hard to expand the tourist potential; currently, they're raising money for a Leavenworth Civic Center (a good idea in my opinion, too).
Oktoberfest in Leavenworth is always held the first weekend in October (unlike Oktoberfest in Germany, which starts in September and runs for about two and a half weeks). They bring in a bunch of German oom-pah bands, truckloads of beer, and lots and lots and lots of food. The tourist crowds are pretty thick, but it's a very friendly event and people are there to have a good time, so there's very little rowdiness. (It also doesn't hurt, with all that alcohol, that there's not much driving in a town that small and there are loads of on-duty officers keeping an eye on things. It all works out.)
This year as last year, the Babe and I headed up to Tacoma and joined up with a bunch of the Babe's siblings, spouses, in-laws, and a couple of old and dear family friends, and we all caravanned over to Leavenworth (about a 2-1/2 hour drive). The trek east on I-90 is worth the trip on its own, as you go through the mountain passes, which are quite scenic. We stayed at the same hotel again this year and even had the same rooms (which we'd rented in March just to be sure we'd have them). When we got there, we unloaded our goods and chattels into our various rooms, after which, the Babe (who had a bit of a cold that we'd been passing back and forth) took a nap while the rest of us went out for beer and nosh to start the weekend off.
Our group this year was as follows (in no particular order other than the pictures):
Steve, one of the Babe's two brothers. Steve is a cop and has a big, broad sense of humor. He's very easy to talk to and (as you can see from the picture) tells stories well.
Andy, Steve's wife (we went out river rafting in September with Steve and Andy). Andy works as a bookkeeper/office manager (and probably should have "Goddess of Organization" title on her card, too). She and Steve frequently host family gatherings. Andy's a good cook, too, which I have always appreciated.
Karen, one of the Babe's many sisters, who is married to Russ. Karen teaches school and she and Russ have amazing children.
Mary (on the left) with Karen. (Mary's not actually related but she and her husband Mike are such fine people that they ought to be.)
Darris (on the right), Andy's sister, about whom I don't know nearly enough except that, like everyone else in the group, she's good company and is great to spend time with.
Russ (on the left) with Mike (who, like Mary, is also a wonderful person). Russ, an engineer, has a very dry sense of humor and tends to be on the quiet side (which can get you steamrolled conversationally in this family at times), but he is a force to be reckoned with: every so often, he'll open his mouth and say something completely devastating that you didn't even see coming. His eyes twinkle when they do it.
What can I say? It's a wonderful family to be part of.
We spent some time sitting around and having a pitcher of a tasty amber microbrew and nibbley food (outstanding French fries and onion rings). The weather was cool but not biting and the breeze had great fall smells on it. We got the waitress to take a shot of the entire table, so here's the whole motley crew (including yours truly):
It's the general tradition to spend the first day doing some shopping (Leavenworth has an awful lot of shopping to offer) and then have a large dinner together. After discussing it, we decided to do Italian food Friday night and then a huge German dinner Saturday. There are Italian restaurants in town and we had a good dinner together. Some of the guys decided to go to the beer hall that evening, for beer, for music, and to pick up Oktoberfest beer mugs while they still had them to sell. We were also collectively on a mission to pick up a beer mug for a missing comrade: Barb (another of the Babe's sisters) and Dan weren't able to make it because one of their daughters was expecting her third child that weekend and they wanted to be there, but Dan didn't want to miss out getting that year's beer stein. I was still short of sleep--I hadn't slept the night before we came up to Tacoma in the course of getting ready and was still a few hours behind, so I turned in early, as did the Babe, who wasn't entirely up to par herself.
Shopping on Saturday
Saturday, we met each other in the hotel's breakfast room. They always have a nice light breakfast although it's short on protein and long on sugars. But there is enough coffee to get one primed to face the day. We headed out through the town to do some serious shopping during the day. The general pattern was that we'd move in a general clump, but there were invariably shops that some weren't as interested in as others, so there were frequent pauses outside or in the shops to either side, then we'd reclump and continue down the street.
One of the discussion points that weekend had been about getting Karen a dirndl, so at one of the shops that sells authentic clothes (right next to a fudge shop that's also worth a stop at for a free sample), we paused and looked at the wares. As the shopkeeper explained, it was hard getting a really good selection reliably as she had to order them from Germany and the turnaround was anywhere from 4-6 weeks to several months and no telling which.
Fortunately, there were a couple of dirndls in Karen's size. They looked pretty good. Karen tried one of them on.
We had our large Saturday meal at King Ludwig's, a popular German restaurant there. They have large platters of food for up to 8 people at a go: lots of food. There were several kinds of sausages, roasted chicken, schnitzels, krauts, pickled beets, German potato salad. . . yum! We got a couple pitches of dark beer and a pitcher of soda and plowed in (belch!). Leavenworth's food is quite memorable.
Traditionally after our late Saturday lunch, the men take off to play golf and the women go shopping. However, I don't play golf. I like golf jokes, I find golf rather interesting, but the couple of times I've tried to hit golf balls, I have been truly ghastly at it. I would have to practice for months to get up to being merely abysmal. I didn't have to play, they suggested, I could always join them and carry clubs. Um, well, noooooo, I didn't feel like I'd come all the way to Leavenworth just so I could caddy, but, uh, thanks all the same, guys. I then got a little ribbing about not spending time with the guys playing golf, but I was able to point out that while they were out playing golf, I was wandering through town shopping with five great-looking women, which, I felt, gave me the win (insert enormous smug grin here). In fact, though, I didn’t do nearly as much shopping as last year on Saturday afternoon. After lunch, I really felt like napping a bit (still catching up on sleep). I went back to the hotel and slept for an hour or so, then walked down main street and caught up with the shopping party.
Addendum, October 30: Steve points out that they didn't say I could carry the clubs, but that I could drive the cart (which they'd rent if I came along). True enough; I had misremembered. However, I still demurred for the same reason: as much as I enjoy Steve, Russ, & Mike, hanging out with the women and shopping seemed like a lot more fun. On the other hand, the ladies have said that next year, they're likely to spend the afternoon at the Solstice Spa getting (are you ready for this?)
The men came back from golf a few hours later and we wandered through the outdoor art show for a while, after which we went over to the beer hall. This year, the beer hall was not being held in the big hall where it was held last year. Instead, there were two smaller beer halls: one in the hall across the way (with about half the capacity of the big hall) and the other in a large tent further down. It was okay, but it wasn't quite as much fun because it was a good deal more crowded and seating was at a premium. But it was still fun: the band was fun and there were several rounds of men and women from the audience trying to yodel along (most were awful but one was almost good), there were lots of really great silly hats, and the band would play the Chicken Dance every so often and we'd all get up and do the chicken dance.
After a couple hours of beer and sausage, we decided to head back to the hotel and play a card game together, something we've done at family events before. We spent a few hours whapping each other at the card table and laughing a lot, then we all went to bed.
Sunday Morning and Home Again
We got up and all headed out for a large family breakfast together (another Leavenworth tradition). The wait at the restaurant was about 35 minutes (well, we were after a table for 9), so several of us walked up the hill to check out the wait at the waffle house and also to get Starbuck's. The waffle house didn't appear to be any better and we all kinda liked the place we'd planned on, so the sortie walked over to Starbuck's, endured another line, and then walked to the restaurant just in time to walk in with Starbuck's cups hidden.
Breakfast was scrumptious. Afterwards, we stopped at a butcher to get sausages and a candy store to pick up some nibbly things for the road, then we went back to the hotel and packed up. We bundled into cars and headed West top Tacoma and home.
Postscript: Barb and Dan became grandparents again late the following week. Babies show up when they're darned good and ready and not a moment before.
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1 comment:
Nice Blog! I love reading Leavenworth, and I have your friends Dirndl on my web site, http://www.mydirndl.com. If you need more, come give us a view, but shop early Oktoberfest is nutz!
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