Ohme Gardens & Winthrop

Papa & Gramma G. are visiting, so we've been playing tourist. Thursday we went to the Ohme Gardens. (as in Oh-Me, Oh-My!) Friday we went up through Lake Chelan, and then on into the Methow Valley, and the "Wild West" town of Winthrop.

So, here's the pics from Ohme. This is a completely unnatural garden up top one of the hills on the outside of Wenatchee. The family started working on it during the depression... since they couldn't build a house because the banks didn't have the funds to lend them at that time, they decided to start working on the yard and have it ready to go when they finally could build a house. It took off from there, but it's really impressive, and definitely worth the entrance fee. Now it is owned by the state, and a huge tourist attraction, and I must say, it's absolutely amazing.



We finally got a family picture where everyone's tongue is still in their mouth, and no one is making weird faces. It's such a miracle. I can't believe it.And, Winthrop... An old west style town in the Methow valley. Absolutely breathtaking, and very fun. I love all old west style stuff, whiskey barrels, windmills, mining carts, iron stoves, wagon wheels, you name it. So interesting and rugged. Imagine all these things these items have seen, in so many years of existence. (if they had eyes, of course!)

The craziest thing about the Methow (pro. Met-How) Valley is the deer. After you enter the valley there's literally a sign on the edge of the freeway that says "Deer Kills". And, they have some kind of ticker thing that counts off the dead deer along the freeway this year, and since they started counting, I don't remember when that was. So far there is 232 this year. (I think that's what the number was.) Anyway, when you drive up there, there is literally herds of 20 or 30 deer in the fields by the road. I think we saw 4 fields like that, and then willy-nilly a few deer elsewhere. It's incredibly tempting to bring a rifle along on these trips. They look delish. Anyway, it sounds like an exaggeration, but there are just so many. It's amazing. We were driving, so we couldn't really take many pictures of them, but we did get one decent one. What's funny is that in this picture there are only 8 deer, but there were probably 15 or so more right to the left of the picture. Ha! Oh well. This valley is most likely one of the places people are talking about when they feel the need to deer proof their yard.
Anyway, we have a new member of our family as of today. Wanna see it?



Yes, our new smoker joined it's big brother, (our barrell grill with smokebox) today. We are so happy to have it. BBQ Pulled Pork Shoulder and Baby Back Ribs are for dinner. Now we can cook twice the amount of meat, at the same time. YUM!!! We have a BBQ problem I think.