Sunday Salon from Leavenworth, Washington. Feb 15th

A view from our hotel of old St. Joseph's church and the Cascade mountains behind

Weather in Leavenworth: It is blue skied and cold this morning. Yesterday it warmed up to 60 degrees. Today it isn't supposed to be that warm.

Leavenworth: is a small town in the Cascade mountains in Washington State which has remade itself into a Bavarian village. The town has strict ordinances and businesses have to comply, so even the Mexican Restuarant has to look like a Bavarian building on the outside. Our hotel, Pension Anna, is full of artifacts and furniture from Germany. Our hosts wear dirndls and lederhosen as they serve us cheeses and meats and boiled eggs for breakfast. It is very charming.

A busy day in Leavenworth on Valentine's/President's Day Weekend

Wine tasting: the tourist section of Leavenworth has many wine tasting rooms serving wines made all over the state of Washington. We stopped off and tasted wines at four rooms and I bought wine at all of them. The Valentine's Day special was for wine and chocolate so every room had some sort of chocolate to sample also. I found myself really liking the red wines if I nibbled chocolate at the same time.  Then I decided what I really liked was the chocolate. Ha!

The big meat in the middle of the menu photo is the schweinshaxe

Meat coma: our first night here we ate German food at King Ludwig's Restaurant where we ordered the schweinshaxe, a roasted ham hock/pork knuckle along with a platter with three kinds of sausage, German potato salad, and two varieties of kraut. We had so much meat we felt like we went into a sort of coma -- a meat coma. It was delicious food, though we decided against German food last night going for lighter food.

Today: we plan a hike along the Wenatchee River here in town.

"Dear Teen Me": I recently read a book called Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves. Most of the authors of these letters do not give their teen self advice on what to change but just words of encouragement about how everything will turn out OK. But as I read the letters I keep thinking about things I'd like to tell my teen self to stop or start doing. So, I decided to add a feature to the Sunday Salon called "Dear Teen Me" where I will give myself a bit of advice to make things better for the me of today.

Dear Teen Me: In a few days you will break up with your 9th grade boyfriend, DB. It will be very hard on him and he will do an alarming thing: he and his friends will hang a dummy from a noose from the edge of the school building dressed in his clothes, to make it look like he committed suicide over your break up. It is not your fault that he is so distraught, nor is it your fault that he did something so inappropriate. But this time I want you to tell an adult what happened and what you know instead of keeping it to yourself. You see, as an adult DB does commit suicide. In his 30's his suicide is completely unrelated to you but you will wonder IF you had done something earlier he may have gotten some help and wonder whether it would have saved him in the future. I have thought many times if I had said something to an adult back in 9th grade things could have changed for him. Trust me on this one. You don't want this burden. Talk to an adult who can help.

Books read this week:

• Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
• Dear Teen Me edited by E. Kristin Anderson, et al
• World According to Dog, poems by Joyce Sitman
• A Bibliophiles Devotional by Hallie Ephron

Currently reading:

• Defending Jacob by William Landay...an audiobook, this month's book club selection
• The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, a future book club selection

Heading out on our day!