Saturday activity

There were no lightening strikes over night in spite of thunder storms that were forecasted.  The woods were much clearer of smoke this morning.  We got our Arrival/Departure list to see only 3 incoming and 1 outgoing.  After all was said and done, only 2 left.  There are 21 on our side tonight.  We puttered around our campsite and at noon time, headed in to Leavenworth to check out the "Dances With Salmon" Festival at the fish hatchery.  Though the sky was overcast, it was with real clouds, not smoke.  The roadway was much clearer and we could see more of the mountain peaks along the way.

 

These peaks in Leavenworth weren't visible at all for the last week.
By the time we headed back to camp, we could see even more.

At the Salmon Festival, we listened to the Recycled  Rhythm Band.
We all had "instruments" to play including the grownups.

There was a Native American Encampment. Here, the
 Native dancers are having a "dance off "with the native salmon.

Oops, the salmon toppled over and needed a hand up.



 



 



Next, there was an invitation to join another salmon

dance.  The women made one line and the men another. 

We had to wave our arms like we were swimming and then

jumping over water falls.

 

This little boy never missed a beat and kept up
with the older boys. It was amazing to watch how the
music changed the steps the dancers did.



Then a little girl joined the tribal dancing.

 

In this dance, two circles were formed.  One moved to the right and one to the left in a dance step.  We began shaking hands as we passed someone inside the circle. I'm shaking hands with a tribe elder from a tribe near the Columbia River.  He and Two Bears,  his wife and the woman who lead the Salmon dance, happily live 5 miles up in the hills, off the grid.

 

After the dancing, we toured the "long house" and learned about the woven mats typically used to cover the pole frames.(Today, canvas was used.) They are layered one over another and keep the long house warm in winter, cool in summer and dry in the rainy season. Over the next year, the plan is for Native children in Washington State to weave enough mats to cover the long house in time for the Salmon Festival in September 2013.

 

We drove into Leavenworth, passing the helio pad where we saw several large helicopters outfitted with water buckets for fire fighting. As large as the water containers were, they were hardly more than spitting on the fire. In Leavenworth, we stopped for a little wine tasting at Pasek/Willow Winery, our favorite for being casual and in our budget.  At Safeway, we saw this poster with the locations of fires. Lake Wenatchee is the blue in the middle with Chelan near the top right.  There are two orange marks to the NE of Lake Wenatchee.  Those were the ones creating smoke for our area. They look pretty far away but the Ranger told us, the closest one is only 10 miles from us. The large orange at the bottom is the Wenatchee Fire  Complex.  42,000 acres burned in the last 2 weeks.

 

The smokey haze in Leavenworth has lifted with the breeze we
had today.  Last Thursday, we couldn't see any of these peaks.

Again, the sun was an orange orb setting over the mountains.

We took the Chumstick Highway back to Plain.  We passed the John Wayne Trail Riders weekend camp out along the way.  Many campers with horse trailers. Back at the campground, we did our walk around of the park after dinner.  There is a nice breeze blowing in the pines.  Campers are pretty quiet, especially since there are no camp fires.