Friday afternoon we drove to Chelan for the weekend. We couldn't ask for better weather and had a nice trip there. We stayed in a little cottage in Chelan. Saturday morning we took a boat to Stehekin. It's the most northern end of Lake Chelan. It was a four-hour ride which was very relaxing and we were able to see some beautiful countryside. Some of the homes on the lakefront I'm sure were multi-million dollar homes; they were huge. As we traveled farther north it became more and more desolate and remote.
Stehekin has about 85 year-round residents, one pay phone, nine miles of road and 21 students in a one-room schoolhouse. The teacher lived in the backroom of this schoolhouse.
They have one teacher and he teaches grades K-8. After 8th grade they are home-schooled or sent to live elsewhere to finish high school. The kids ride bikes or walk to school when there's no snow, otherwise they ski to school. This would be the perfect job for Alanna; she wouldn't have problems with the principal or team teachers (because there aren't any). Her only problem would be finding enough students to put on the Shakespeare play.
There's no grocery stores, they have to use the pay phone to call Safeway in Chelan to order groceries and the boat delivers them the next day. There's one restaurant serving mostly tourists. Large items needed (cars, trucks, building supplies, etc.) are delivered by barge. The only way to reach Stehekin is by boat, float plane backpacking.
While we were there we took the short bus, (school bus) to Rainbow Falls. It's 312' high and beautiful! We went to the visitor's center and looked around, then it was time to get back on the boat and head back to Chelan. We would like to go back and spend a couple days there. I know I don't have enough pioneer spirit in me to live there even a couple weeks, let alone year-round. It's a beautiful place to visit.
The cottage we stayed at in Chelan. Notice the lilac bush behind the car.
4 comments:
What a great weekend. The cottage looks really cute. I am so glad you take the time to do things like this and to share it with us. I love to see it all. It does look beautiful. It is strange to think that people still live like that!
WOW! There is NO way I could teach there. I can't even imagine that they could find someone who wanted to teach in that situation. I wonder how smart those kids are...
THe waterfall is awesome! They are one of my favorite things in nature.
I would love to see this place sometime!
That place sounds really cool. I'm glad you guys had a great time. I'll have to look into backpacking into there sometime to see it for myself. Imagine, living in our day and age in such a remote place. I think that that could be pretty peaceful... although life's challenges would be different there would be a lot less that one would have to worry about. I, for one, feel closer to my Heavenly Father when I'm isolated in the wilderness. Maybe that's why I love backpacking soo much.
That looks awesome Matt and I will have to do that sometime when we come out to visit.
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