Wenatchee - Part II

The Columbia Chorale 30th anniversary concert was on Friday night.

The alumni were brought up to join the chorale for the finale three numbers.

They sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

 

They also performed "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place" from Brahms' Requiem, which you can see here and Ave Verum by Mozart which can be seen (partially) here.

It was very neat for me, because out of the eighty or so people up there Lydia was the BEST.
Afterwards, we celebrated with cake and punch.
 

We had very nice accommodations, which is new for Wenatchee.

However, the view from the room was classic Wenatchee.

On the days after the rehearsal and the concert, we had time to explore the city and surrounding area.

Wenatchee has two notable attributes and they are the parks and the relatively recent explosion of wineries.

We spent some time in Confluence Park watching the duckings.

Oh, and we (I) had to check out the new hockey arena, the Toyota Town Center.

It has a rink for public skating.

And it has an arena for the Wenatchee Wild, a Tier II Junior A hockey team in the North American Hockey League.  The arena seats 4,300 for games.

Those of you who played in the old rink will be happy to know that it's still there.

Before we went winery hopping, we drove up to Mission Ridge Ski Area to see what we could see.  The ski area was closed for the season, but there were snow boarders up there.
The views are wonderful.

Then it was time to hit the wineries.

Possibly our favorite was Martin-Scott Winery in East Wenatchee.   

The people are extraordinarily nice (there is a lost wallet story), the wines are superb and the location and grounds are just beautiful.

Not sure why, but they have a train running through the vineyards.

 Most of the wineries have apple orchards as well.

Some other wineries were Malaga Springs Winery, which you had to really want to go to in order to find it........

And Saint Laurent Estates was pretty nice too.

While we drove around, we saw some interesting rock formations.

Not to mention other fabulous views.

I wanted to capture an orchard in full blossom, but this is the best that I could do.

We had a fun time.

Wenatchee - Part I

When we lived in Wenatchee in the early 1990's, Lydia was a member of the Columbia Chorale.  I always enjoyed their concerts along with those of the Wenatchee Valley Symphony.  They were always high-quality performances for such a relatively small city.

The Chorale is celebrating their 30th anniversary this year and they invited all "alumni" to return for a celebratory concert this past weekend.

Lydia was excited to get the invitation and I was curious to visit Wenatchee since I can only remember being back once since we moved to Mount Vernon in 1992 (!).  There was a rehearsal on Monday night and the concert on Friday evening, so we made two trips across the mountains, staying overnight each time.

We were blessed with gorgeous weather for the drive.

It's cool to see the avalanche canyons.

There was still plenty of snow at Stevens Pass.

And other cool photos that I can't resist sharing.

Rehearsal didn't last long, so we decided to go see our old house.

506 N. Mason.  Yup, we used to live there.