Leaving Winthrop, I headed south on the Highway 20 and the 153 toward Chelan. The Methow River does a stunning horseshoe bend, fortunately in an area where I was able to pull off the road. The river continued right on down into Chelan, probably the most picturesque of all the towns in this area.

Chelan is a small lakeside community of less than 5000 people. Because of its picturesque setting at the foot of the Cascades and on the shores of Lake Chelan, tourism is high year round. It is one of its two mian industries, agriculture being the other.

There are a few places in Chelan where one can walk the water's edge. Above is the Riverfront Park at the end of downtown's main street. Another is its Lakeside Park, just a block or two off the main shopping street. Shopping? Oh, yeah! Shopping is fantastic in Chelan.

Wenatchee was a favorite of mine on this long, long road trip I'm taking. Typically, I go more for the smallers town and countryside, but I think having not been in a city with lots of amenities for the last several days perhaps finally caught up with me. I kinda gawked at a Target and Old Navy as if they were long-lost friends.

With that aside, it was Wenatchee's riverfront that kept me entertained for hours. Starting at the Pybus Public Market, filled with shops and eateries, and continuing north along the riverfront walk to Walla Walla Point Park, it was calming, inviting and picturesque.

The park's Art on the Avenues is both classy and whimsical. Children played on the velvety green lawn, and osprey nested above. A town of almost 35,000, Wenatchee is known as the Apple Capital of the World; it's also the location of the confluence of the Columbia and Wenatchee Rivers.

Wenatchee's Riverfront Park offers a nice stroll along the Columbia River and is graced with pieces of art by various sculptors. Also, a pair of osprey have made their nest high on a post towering the park and river.

To Life by Sharon Spencer, Greenbank, WA

Rock 'N Roll On A Skateboard by Pokey, Park, Tucson

Still, down in Wenatchee, the smoke from out-of-state fires fills the backdrop.

Walla Walla Point Park at Wenatchee's Riverfront Walk

An outdoor memorial for the Sept 11,2001 attacks on the U.S. is located at Cashmere's Riverside Center. So well done, it was, of the various memorials in the U.S. that I've visited, the one that brought tears to my otherwise smiling eyes.

On three stone pillars are description plaques of the three sites affected in the attack: the Pentagon, the towers and the Flight 93 plane. The names of those lost are listed.

Another sculpture holds a portion of a metal beam recovered from the 60th floor of one of the World Trade Center towers and a chunk of stone taken from the top of the Pentagon.

The third statue is a circle of four people sculpted in bronze, their lower clothing and legs tattered and scorched. They represent a firefighter, a civilian, a military member and a flight attendant. They are joining hands to make up the circle except for an open space where the circle is not complete. This space represents those whose bodies were never recovered.

Each year the town of Cashmere holds a memorial on Sept 11 at 11 a.m. The memorial is also in honor of veterans of the wars, so we may never forget the sacrifices they've made.

Cashmere is yet another charming little town in the apple and pear region of Washington state. At the highway entrance to the town is a bridge under which the Wenatchee River, pictured here, crosses as it makes it way to merge with the Columbia.

Apple orchards fill the landscape in Dryden, between Cashmere and Leavenworth off the Highway 2.

Obviously, not all the terrain in the apple region is suitable for agriculture. This picture was taken from the Old Monitor Road in the community of Monitor.

This view of the Peshastin Pinnacles is actually better than one you might see in the Peshastin Pinnacles State Park. This photo was also taken from the Monitor area.

From what I've seen, there are few towns in Germany's state of Bavaria that are as Bavarian as Leavenworth, Washington! Maybe they overdo it a bit here, but tourists flock in in hoards. Inside the tourist area, where even Subway and Starbucks get into the theme by displaying their banner signs in the typical Bavarian scroll, shops, restaurants, ice cream and candy parlors and hotels abound, with their mural-painted facades, flags flying and balconies overflowing with flower pots. Frankly, I'm surprised there is no Fußgängerstrasse, (a pedestrian-only street).

Outside the bustling and color-clad streets that make up the replicated German state, the charming town calms down, and the population of some 2000 residents carries on normal, peaceful lives.

Because Leavenworth's main street, Highway 2, cuts right through the middle of "Bavaria," I suspect the locals know and use the sidestreets as much as possible during the summer high season.

Some of the most remarkable and stunning land is the area between Wenatchee and Leavenworth. The state park could not have picked a more perfect location for people to enjoy the surrounding beauty. The Wenatchee River flows gracefully at the base of forested mountains and through the Wenatchee Canyon.

With mountains surrounding a glacial lake, no setting is more beautiful than the Wenatchee State Park. The 5-mile lake with its nearly 13,000 feet of shoreline is opportunity for every imaginable on-shore and off-shore activity. Lake Wenatchee State Park is open year-round, so winter offers endless activities as well.

The Wenatchee River travels 53 miles from Lake Wenatchee southeast through several Chelan County towns before emptying into the Columbia River just north of Wenatchee, the city.

Pine River Ranch can be anything you want it to be, from a destination wedding spot, a conference center, to a quiet and scenic B&B. It's located on Farm Road 207, the same road that leads to the entrance to Lake Wenatchee State Park. The Ski-Land Barn pictured here is on the grounds of the ranch. The lodge is hidden from view in this photo. The words "Ski-Land Barn 1944" refer to when the barn was built and in recognition of the owner's Ski-Land Fruit Packing Plant in Leavenworth. The barn itself and the grounds it's on were once a dairy farm.

This bridge crossing the Wenatchee River just off Highway 2 is part of the Tumwater Pipeline Trail. It may have lost its original purpose, but it still packs a lot of charm.

The Tumwater Dam was built in the early 1900s and was used to produce electricity for the electric locomotives run by the Great Northern Railway that carried passengers and freight over the Cascade Mountains. Previous coal-run trains were causing toxic gases when passing through a 3-mile long tunnel at Stevens Pass. Hence came the need for electric locomotives. Today, that purpose is obsolete and ended in 1929, but the dam remains an attraction to visitors traveling the Highway 2 between Stevens Pass and Wenatchee, a scenic drive through the Tumwater Canyon.