The boat pulled into Seattle before 7 this morning. We had a final breakfast in the main dining room and left the boat a little after 9, going through U.S. Customs, and then taking an Uber to Budget Rentals downtown where we picked up the Lincoln Navigator which we will have at an exhorbitant rate for a week as we drive to Montana.

The Navigator is Escalade size, which is not a problem, but its screens seem to be. Whatever you want to do, you need to do on the screen, and you probably need to take a 3 or 4 credit class in order too understand how to do the most basic things. But if you don’t mind any of that, you can push Drive, press the accelerator and go.

And we did, driving first to Bellvue to have brunch, our second meal of the day, with Edie’s first cousin once removed Cindy and her husband Danny Weiner. A nice brunch, conversation about family and Isrsel, and we were off again. Here we were:

Then, all of us but Hannah left heading east. Hannah stayed at Cindy’s until the rest of her family came back from camping in Olympic National Park.

We drove north through some fascinating Seattle suburbs to US 2, where we headed east through the Cascades on a beautiful road. I was driving, so I could take no pictures, but the mountains are tall and ragged, some are covered with trees and some not, and there are lakes and remarkably clear rivers.

We stopped in an interesting older town at the west end of our trip and had our third meal of the day, a late lunch at the Tijuana Restaurant, a highly rated, and small, Mexican restaurant run by the same couple for 32 years. If you are ever in Monroe, try to eat there.

After we drove through Stevens Pass, where the rivers started flowing east, not west, we came a large and very touristy Bavarian village surprisingly called Leavenworth, and passed a state park called Pinnacle, both of which we plan to visit tomorrow. And then we got to Wenatchee, where we will stay two nights.

In Wenatchee, we had our fourth meal, at McGlinns Pub. I had a delicious lamb burger with feta, and a glass of Oregon stout, brand name Cavaticus. I looked up the name, thinking it might be Indian, and discovered it was, in fact, not. Cavaticus is Charlotte’s last name in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. Who knew? Not the waitress.

Wenatchee is east of the Cascades, and its hills are basically treeless, and more like buttes. Maybe they are buttes. I don’t know.

Wanatchee is on the Columbia River, and the opposite side of the river is East Wanatchee, which contains some beautiful neighborhoods, set high on the buttes. Hard to get good pictures, but the houses climb in bands, and have yards or decks with beautiful views. Like this (from about half way up):

We are now back at the hotel.

Oh! One more thing. I didn’t mention another small town we passed, Sultan. They were having the Sultan Shindig, with vendor tents on closed city streets. I bought a button:

The waitress at McGlinn’s liked it.