Wenatchee WA

Thursday, June, 6
Wenatchee Park and City

Today it the day to get things in order. LAUNDRY!. but it won't be our highlight of the day. We had some fun last night. We played a couple of matches of "pickleball" The sport is played on a court with the same dimensions as a doubles badminton court. (BIG). The net is similar to a tennis net, but is mounted two inches lower. The game is played with a hard paddle and a polymer smaller version of a wiffle ball. It's serve and return is a lot like tennis with some changes to the rules of positions and scoring.

So we're off to Wenatchee:

Wenatchee is located at the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia rivers in the Columbia Basin, just east of the foothills of the Cascade Range. Nestled in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains, there are blue skies 300 days of the year. Technically a desert, irrigation from the Columbia River and her tributaries allows for the large amount of agriculture in Wenatchee and the surrounding areas.
The city of Wenatchee is bordered by the Wenatchee River on the north, the Columbia River to the east, and the Wenatchee Mountains to the south and west. These ridges and peaks form a wall around the western and southern sides of the city. Hiking trails abound. The sage-steppe ecosystem of the foothills is especially beautiful in spring.

Wenatchee is known as the "Apple Capital of the World" due to the valley's many orchards. The city is also sometimes referred to as the "Buckle of the Power Belt of the Great Northwest". The "Power Belt of the Great Northwest" is a metaphor for the series of hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River. Rock Island Dam is located nearest to the middle of this "belt", and so was labeled the "Buckle". This saying is printed at the top of every issue of Wenatchee's newspaper, the Wenatchee World, and is no longer in common use elsewhere. Electricity costs 3¢ per KWH as compared to our 8.9¢ per KWH--CHEAP and Wisconsin is raising it's rates 42%.


Our first stop was at the public market.