Anniversary trip

The end of May Shari and I had a wonderful time celebrating our 20th anniversary. Our hotel was nothing special - the Hampton Inn on the west side of Ellensburg. But it was nice, clean, and provided what we needed. Our anniversary dinner, on the other hand, was amazing! To save myself some time, here's the review that I posted on Yelp:

"My wife and I were looking for something semi-formal, close to Ellensburg, and a place that served good steak. We hit a homerun with this place. I'm not a fisherrman, so the connected, high-end fish store was only interesting to browse through, but the view on the river was fantastic. We ate outside until the wind picked up and it started to rain. The service was excellent - friendly, timely, and they worked hard to make us comfortable outside as the wind picked up and it started sprinkling - a nice gas fire, then even overhead, movable heaters. The inside area was also nice, though a bit cooler than I like to have my indoors. Then there was the steak, garlic potatoes, and asparagas. Melt-in-your-mouth good. Not too much garlic, and cooked as I like it... once my wife and I switched plates. Okay, they weren't perfect, but close. A few things that lost them a star (too me). I think they focus too much on their wines - and they have a lot of them, being in wine country. I'm not big on wine, so take that for what it's worth. Second is they don't have much of a selection. There's variety - fish, steak, fish, shellfish - but not many different plates, e.g. only 1 steak dish (New York cut, though), and their chicken dish was a half-chicken. Finally, like I said, it was a little cool inside for my tastes. Overall, though, if we needed a nice place to eat in the Ellensburg area again, this place would win, hands-down. Why go all the way to Yakima for a nice place to eat. Even getting there was worth the drive. The canyon was fantastic. I'll have to try the rock fish (line caught) next time."

The next day we went to Cle Elum, and enjoyed a great day of exploring (I've never been on Hwy 10 to Cle Elum before) and disc golf. We started at Suncadia Resort, a semi-private housing development - we couldn't drive around the houses, but the park, bike paths, and golf courses (yes, two of them) were open to the public, and they were amazing. The folf course was fantastic, providing a challenge like when we lived in Missoula, but the distance between the tee and the hole wasn't as far, and we didn't lose any discs. We still had all the trees we needed to block our shots, though.

We then went to a city folf course. The first nine holes were challenging for a variety of reasons, but the biggest being that it wasn't a well developed course. There weren't many obvious trails, and you could rarely see the hole from the tee. There was usually a map to give you a general idea of where you were going, but no idea of distance. The second nine were even more poorly marked, and you often weren't sure even where to tee off. We finally stopped after 11 holes. The first nine were worth the time, but I wouldn't keep going after that until there better marked. It looks like somebody got a brilliant idea (it really is a great place for a challenging course), then didn't have the money and/or time to finish the job, or to keep it up. That's unfortunate, because I think Cle Elum could really benefit from that niche market of disci golfers, at least amateurs like us.

We drove home via Hwy 10 again, getting a good look at the views from the other direction, then took the Vantage Hwy back to Vantage from Ellensburg. That one was a waste of time, but it was different, so I'm not sorry. We can at least say we've been on it.

Overall, it was a great trip away, and felt more relaxing than one would think possible for only 36 hours. A great way to celebrate 20 years with my beautiful bride... and kick off another 20. We recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of some friends in our square dancing club. Wow! That's an amazing milestone. Someday Shari and I will get there. I hope I'm in as good of shape as they are.


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