March 11, 2007

• Lake Chelan

  A snow-covered ridge peaks through my view.  The white is clean against the brown bell tower of the church across the street.  I’m in Chelan, drinking a 12-ounce, double Americano, no room and extra hot, looking through one of those cool doors that go up on rollers.  You know, those garage-door sized, glass and aluminum jobs?  There was one at the coffee shop I used to go to every morning, and I can still hear the sound in spring when around ten they’d roll it up.  This floor reminds me of my friend’s old kitchen with a black-and-white checkerboard floor.  If it were warmer and the door was up I’d be out on the slate courtyard, trying to write on their funky iron tables.

   

  The Episcopal Church, which just happens to be the right one for me, is the antithesis of mine.  It’s a log cabin from the 1800s with a woman Reverend who talks like a cowboy.  Their stained glass windows let more light in and her sermon I won’t forget.  When it was time to shake hands with your neighbor and say “Peace be with you,” instead of turning to the left and right, people left their pews and started walking around.  We all met in the middle so everyone could get caught up.  Ten minutes later the Reverend resumed.

   

  Each morning I walk out my door, down the main highway a block, turn the corner and drop down into town over a little bridge to the main strip.  It’s taken three days to do the strip. 

   

  Yesterday I went snowshoeing up at Echo Ridge and then found a popular winery in the neighboring town of Manson.  It was barely noon but she plied me with tastings, and for free.  I bought what I’m dying to drink but won’t:  Red Delicious.  They only serve dinner, which they are famous for, so I went looking for lunch and found the best tacos I’ve ever eaten, in the back of a grocery store, of all places.

   

  Lake Chelan is my new favorite place.  I’ve probably said that before, on other vacations, but this time I even bought a sweatshirt with big white letters across the front.  Lunch is the only meal I eat out as I have a wonderful kitchen to cook in and brought many delicacies with me.  After lunch I do the loop.  There are two baby bridges at either end of town and they both feed onto the river walk: paved paths that wind along both banks of the river.  The bridge closest to the time-share separates the lake from the river.

   

  At night I build a fire and work on the novel.  No distractions here, read no computer.  There’s one in the office I can use for 20 minutes but the market’s been so bad I don’t want to look.  I get CNBC so I can watch the ticker tape.  And I’ve been watching Mad Money and The Fast Five so I know what’s going on but vacation’s the perfect place to forget.  Standing in snowshoes at the North Junction yesterday with nobody but me and God, as far as the eye could see, put some perspective on my monetary loss.

   

  From the bridge into town I can see my dock.  Lake Chelan is long and narrow and surrounded by a white ridge of tall hills.  At night I can see lights across the way from the hotels that line the lake.  Spring break is coming and that’s when the town goes nuts again.  I guess the strip becomes a mob scene and the lake is covered in boats. 

   

  Three shop girls are conferring about window displays.  The young men who come in and out for coffee probably work construction, as there’s much building going on.  Lake Chelan runs through the neighboring town of Manson where they are playing catch-up to Chelan.  It’s still just wineries and apple orchards.  There is a large Hispanic population in both towns, seamlessly integrated from my limited vantage.

   

  I leave tomorrow, early, so I can take another look at Leavenworth, a tourist town dressed up to look Bavarian.  Before I leave, though, I’ll take one last walk over the bridge so I can remember the way the blue and white came together.  So much contrast with only one shade of two colors.  The glassy lake reflects the soft blue sky but what lends a mystical feel is the mist of white hovering at the back of the lake.  It’s as soft as the sky, against the crystal white snow, each fading into the other.  I want to remember the mornings because by afternoon the fog rises through the blue to become billowing pillows, softer than sky.  I stop and stare in thanks at the ever-changing shift of two colors.  This study in texture, the juxtaposition of soft and hard, what does that teach me?

   

  • 2:32 am
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