Staying at Bartells in Africa (or is it Hawaii?)

Well we’ve arrived and, depending on who you speak to, we are staying at Bartell’s (a chain of drug stores in the Puget Sound area) in Onatchee, or Hawaii or Africa. Caitlin has been confusing the word “Bartell” for hotel since the day before we left for our trip. We tried to correct her at first but it is entrenched and so we are just going with it now. Ditto for Africa and Hawaii. I think the important points for Caitlin are that we are away somewhere and we are staying some place other than our house  Ashley is the “Onatchee” girl. Although they both used to know the word Wenatchee, I fear it may be lost to them forever!

So here we are in Wenatchee, in Eastern Washington. We arrived on Wednesday night and there was great excitement when we booked into the hotel. The girls ooed and awed at everything: staying in a bed just like Mum and Dad’s (it’s a twin room), bouncing on said bed (not permitted at home), there is a bathroom in our “Bartell” room, there is a toilet and a bath and a shower and “do you know, we have two sinks?” The whole bathroom/toilet wonderment comes from Caitlin, when you’re 3 these are important! There are tissues, and little bars of soap and miniature bottles of shampoo, and “they have the most perfect thing, a hairdryer”. The latter being bizarrely exciting to Ashley.  Oh and let’s not forget the pool and the much anticipated hot tub!

We are here because James is taking part in the Northwest Crank cycling festival for the second year in a row. He’ll cycle for each of the four days we’re here and the girls and I will explore while he’s off. We were here for the Northwest Crank last year too. The weather was much better then, in the 70s. It’s in the 50s this year, but at least so far no rain. Having been here last year, and gotten over my anxiety at trying to orient myself and not get lost when exploring, we hit the ground running this morning. As soon as we saw James off on his ride we headed to Walla Walla Park to play in the playground and explore some trails. We thoroughly enjoyed the play structure (and I do mean “we”), skimmed stones, admired ducks, coons, and swallows, explored trails and pretended we were camping and also that we were salmon swimming up river led by a coyote (inspired by a sculpture in the park). Then when we felt cold we went to an Entertainment store called Hastings, which sells Books, DVDs, CDs, etc. The important aspect of Hastings was that it had a café so that we could drink hot chocolate and read Merlin and the Dragons. Then after that we spent about an hour playing “school” we the toys and books in the Children’s section. We really had a great time together.

I don’t plan on adding photos of our current trip to the blog until we return home but here is a selection from last year to get a feel for what it’s like over here.

Wenatchee 2007