Trip to Cascade Loop

I wasn’t even out of my Jet lag and it was a long weekend, Monday being a Memorial Day in the U.S. Initially, I planned to join my cousin and his friends for the Yellow Stone National Park trip, but it couldn’t work out for me as they were leaving early on Friday and I had enough work to complete before leaving for the Long Weekend. Later, I joined some of my other friends for the trip to Cascade Loop and had a wonderful time.
We left Seattle around 9 in the morning with all the maps and directions ready in our hand. Raj, Devesh, Rakesh and I were in the same car and Gautam and co in other. Gautam was very much aware of the roads and places so we never had any problems related to them.
Driving on Cascade Loop was like dream come true for a person who loves fast driving. All the cars are at minimum 60 mph (100kmph). Driving at 80 and taking a turn is as if you are swinging and if you reach 100 (160 kmph), you are definitely flying. I was really impressed by the well planned infrastructure. If you enter a freeway, you cannot exit before a mile. AT every mile there is an EXIT point which is properly numbered, so that you can very much predict which EXIT is going to be the next and drive on the right most lanes to take that EXIT. You cannot afford to be at a wrong lane as changing your lane isn’t that easy, especially when the cars behind you are at such a high speed. Though, I did that too and not just once but many a times and luckily there was no police nearby else would have been out of money by now for paying 100 dollars ticket each time .
Cascade Loop is a loop close to Seattle. It covers various places like Wenatchee, Lake Chelan, etc. It is a very big loop may be one has to travel around 1000 miles to cover the whole loop so 2 days weren’t sufficient to do that. First it was Rafting time. About 150 miles from Seattle and 20 miles before Wenatchee town there is a rafting point. Gautam and Tony were sitting in the front and were getting drenched with every small tide coming on us. With such cold water they would have definitely freeze. The instructor was a she with say in close to middle 20s with a beautiful pair of cheeks. No, don’t worry, I didn’t kiss them ;) Along with that she was an excellent guide to us.
The next destination was Leavenworth village. It’s a fake German (Deutsch) village, with good beer, chocolate and ice cream shops. I badly wanted to try out my four years back learnt German on those poor fellows, but couldn’t as it was all an American crowd. There was a live orchestra going on with some people dancing on the street. I like colorful places, especially not the normal American towns and cities which have either sky scrapers or some greenery to fill the places between them. Though, Redmond is a beautiful place, but I find only cars on the roads, no people, not much chit chat and no gol gappe wala on the road side. Leavenworth was with life, so I liked it. We entered an ice cream shop and we could try out various ice creams before actually buying one. I tasted about 5 to 6 exotic ones and finally took the best.
Summers usually have real long days in U.S. I am not aware of the other western countries. Unlike the Asian countries where the days are about half an hour or an hour longer in summers than in winters, the American Summer days are like 3 to 4 hrs longer. Sun sets around 9 p.m. and rises at around 5 a.m. And it is summers in U.S. right now, so we could comfortably roam on the streets and drive on the roads without any night glares till 10 p.m. But, who is going to sleep when you have casinos around you. We went to a casino in Wenatchee town at around 10 p.m. and returned around 3 a.m. I didn’t try out much on gambling as saving my money for Las Vegas casinos . Aditya, quickly sleep... As tomorrow is going to be a Bay Watch Day .

Second day was for Lake Chelan. Wenatchee, a river, pours a part of its water into Lake Chelan.We quickly grabbed some pizzas and went on for some water sports. I usually don’t have to think much while ordering and don’t miss Vidit on these moments as there are hardly one or two options for a veggie on the menu card . SO , do akkad bakad bambay bo and choose your pick. We did Jet skiing. We were the only people in full clothes. Mostly, you can generalize these Americans in two buckets. One, who don’t care for their physique at all and the other who have perfect body and figure, not even a centimeter of fat hanging out. You can flaunt it only when you have it. It was really a bay watch day.
We thought of returning back from Lake Chelan as going further was not that interesting and would have been just driving. It was a good trip and am looking forward to more such trips :)