Day Ten, the Exotic East

Slept in again; it happens sometimes. My campsite was very comfortable. Just off the road but invisible on the banks of a raging river. But every falling pine cone, every rustling leaf, sounded just like a bear. Or a Bigfoot; one can never be sure.

Hiked down to Leavenworth by ten-thirty or so, and experienced some small culture shock. It's a biggish little town; they have sidewalks! The first I have encountered for days. For years I have had vague intentions of Walking Across America. I always imagined there being sidewalks the whole way. With comfortable benches to rest on and geraniums in pots. I always imagined the biggest challenge I'd face would be waiting for traffic lights. Ah, foolish youth.

But what else stuns the casual visitor to Leavenworth is that at some point in the early sixties, abandoned by the railroad and facing a slump in the logging industry, the town fathers, eager to revitalize the local economy, reinvented the town on the model of a Bavarian village.

Now I have never been to Bavaria, but it looks like they have done a pretty neat job of it. A sign at one end of town bids you Willcommen, at the other it reads auf Wiedersehen. In between them you are, like it or not, hip deep in Bavaria. They host the seond biggest Oktoberfest, after Munich, and boast of the world's largest nutcracker collection.

And the plan seems to have worked. Everyone seemed happy and there are any number of upmarket, alpiney looking motels doing a brisk business, even this early in the season. The place is crawling with tourists, mostly old people in shorts, working their way from der Pizzeria to der Ice Cream Hut, enjoying cappucinos at der Starbucks and upping their prescriptions at der 24-hour pharmacy. I enjoyed it all in spite of myself. It is getting harder and harder to be cynical about these things. I hear it's especially lovely at Christmas.

I spent three hours at the library, rewriting yesterday's notes and recharging my batteries. There had been some danger of my falling out of correspondence. My poor little computer has been running on fumes. I also stopped in for a pint or two at the local pub and stumbled onto a realisation. Namely, beer, for all its merits, is not wholly conducive to transcontinental pedestrianism. Now this may be one o' them Self-Evident Truths Jefferson was on about, but it took me two early afternoon half drunks to figure it out.

Nevertheless, I overcame. With a brief stop at der Hippie Whole Foods on the edge of town (Cheers, Jackie!), I was back out on the wide smooth highway headed down the hill towards Wenatchee. I bit the bullet and went almost four hours straight, with only the briefest of rest stops. So despite all my indulgences, I must have made eighteen miles. Not quite up to the numbers I intended for myself, but a vast improvement over previous days.

Find me now on the edge of a river in the small town of Monitor, Wa. I crossed a charmingly rickety bridge to get here. You could see the water below. It was getting dark and I was desperate for a place to camp. I am in eastern Washington now, a whole different landscape. There aren't nearly as many trees. What good land there is, if I am reading things right, seems to be given over to pear trees. Pears are mushy.

I thought though I should probably ask someone if it was OK to camp here. There was a sign that probably said No Camping which I tried very hard not to read. I finally ran into Derek, a local, a strapping young lad of fourteen. "Can I camp there?" I ask. "Dunno," he says. And that was good enough for me.

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