Downlake

After spending the night at Keith and Adrienne's lovely house, we woke up to a very warm morning with temperatures due to be near 100 F all day. Fortunately they have a gorgeous swimming pool in their backyard and we were in there before breakfast! I don't have any photos because I didn't want to risk getting the camera wet.

Sitting with Keith and Adrienne and their lovely dog Scout

 Adrienne treated us to french toast with fresh peaches for breakfast, then we spent most of the day in the pool until around 2:30pm when we headed down to the "boat shop" in Manson to go swim in the lower end of Lake Chelan (which is quite a bit warmer than the Stehekin end). We hung out with the herds of cousins and friends of cousins for a few hours and then made our way to Wenatchee.

The view from the boat shop

T & R and two of their cousins

The lower end of Lake Chelan has spectacular lakefront homes, many with their own boats, slides, water trampolines, jet skis, and other amazing water play toys! Clearly people have invested a lot of money into these lakefront properties, and it is not uncommon for all these places to show no signs of life, even on a hot August day! If one was to travel by boat along the lakeshore, one would be oohing and aahing at all these pristine houses, and then something would catch your eye. OMG what is THAT?! THAT is our family's boat shop. Maybe at one time it was a place that people fixed up boats (as in, repair workshop, not retail shop). But I don't think its ever been anything other than an eyesore amidst elegant lakefront homes. And one of the other distinguishing features of the boat shop is that on any day of the summer, there is guaranteed to be a herd of kids playing and swimming, with 1 or more adult lounging in the shade, watching the kids with a cold bevvie in hand.  I love the boat shop and I'm so proud to be part of this family.

Looking along the lakeside to the neighboring properties

The open interior of the boat shop: massive kitchen, wood burning stove, and plenty of chairs

So after our stint of swimming and playing with distant cousins, the kids and I got back into the Dustbuster and drove 45 minutes to Wenatchee. We stayed at our friends' Dave & Shelly's house, but sadly Shel wasn't there again (we missed seeing her last year too!). In fact, Dave wasn't there either when we arrived, but his friend Dan was there so we had Taco Bell burritos for dinner and went swimming in Dave/ Shelly's pool. I love having friends and relatives with swimming pools! The next day we had to wake up at 4am to leave at 4:30am to get to the airport by 5am for our 6am flight. Dave got up to see us off, and Dan drove us to the airport so we could leave the Dustbuster at Dave/ Shel's house.

Dan, Rhiannon, Tryfan, Dave and puppy with red eyes

We had a gorgeous flight from Wenatchee to Seattle over the Cascade Mountains.

Cascade Range just after sunrise

We spent a few hours in Seattle airport, eating a leisurely breakfast and window shopping, then flew to Santa Barbara. Our route took us between Mt. Adams to the east and Mt. St Helens to the west.

Mt Adams with some clouds that looked like volcano steam

The crater of Mt St Helens

We flew with Horizon Air/ Alaska Airlines, and I was delighted to discover that they still offer complimentary beer and wine which comes from the regional Pacific Northwest microbreweries and wineries and changes on a monthly basis. In this day and age of airlines charging for everything, it was lovely to sample a local brewski at lunchtime on the plane. Its 5 o'clock somewhere, right?