Day 8 - Early Morning Puttering Around, Mid-Morning Reindeer Bonding, Afternoon Lakeside Tapenade

 It got cold last night. When we woke up this morning, the temperature was in the 30’s. After a nice hot breakfast in the lobby of our hotel, we each grabbed a putter and a couple of golf balls and headed across the street to the Enzian Falls Championship Putting Course. Our hotel owns the course, so we got to play for free as guests.

At just under 1600 yards, this is an 18 hole all natural grass course with lots of elevation changes and quirky twists and turns. Par is 57. The fairways and greens were still icy when we started out. On a slope next to the course, goats were doing their groundskeeping duty by munching weeds.

Surrounded by tall mountains on each side of the valley, we were the only people on the course this morning. All was quiet until we heard an honest-to-goodness alpen horn begin to play in the distance. We could never find out who was playing, but it was definitely someone playing live nearby. The hills were alive with the sound of…putting.

We hit some good shots.

And we hit some questionable shots.

With an invigorating 18 holes in the bag, it was time to get over to the Leavenworth Reindeer Farm for our 11:00am appointment.  We were greeted at the entrance by a rather testy turkey, who was making all kinds of gobbling barnyard sounds.

Karen got to cuddle with a furry little rabbit while we waited for the reindeer tour.

There was a brief orientation, in which we learned about the differences between reindeer and caribou (one is wild, the other domesticated), and then we were turned loose in a pen with the reindeer.

We learned that you do not wave your hand at a reindeer, particularly in rutting season, because your outstretched fingers resemble antlers - and that is an invitation to engage in some head-butting.

Reindeer love to munch on willow leaves, and the farmhands gave us willow branches when we entered the pen. Karen immediately made friends with several reindeer.

With visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads, we jumped in the car and drove east and then north toward Lake Chelan. Along the way, we followed the Entiat Reservoir through a valley bordered by dry craggy mountains devoid of any trees. It was strange to see the brown topography after traveling for several days through densely forested areas.

Lake Chelan is a very long (over 50 miles) glacially-created lake. There are many vacation homes surrounding the southern end of the lake. It looks like there has been a fairly recent boom of growth (most of the homes look new), and there are lots of vineyards and wine tasting venues in the area that also appear to be of recent vintage.

Our hotel, The Lakeside Inn and Suites, is right on the lake and just down the road from one of those tasting rooms. After a quick nap, we went over for a flight of wine samplers and some tapenade, and listened to an earnest young local singer-songwriter pour out her life story in open-D tuning on her guitar.

NEXT: A Long Drive to Anacortes