Go! Road Trips 2010

Seattle’s nice, but rolling out of town in the springtime is even sweeter. Here, five excuses to load the trunk, get behind the wheel, and put rubber to asphalt.

By James Ross Gardner, Jessica Voelker, Christopher Werner, David Laskin, and Lia Steakley Dicker

Photo: Martin Bydalek

Chilling in Chelan

by James Ross Gardner

I was late, hungry, and lost. The buildings up and down Quetilquasoon Road looked shapeless in the dark. I fumbled for my phone and dialed. “ Wapato Point Cellars ,” said a male voice on the other end. I apologized for being nearly an hour overdue for my dinner reservation. “We just closed,” the voice said, coolly. “But we’ll still serve you.” My trip to central Washington’s Lake Chelan wasn’t off to a smooth start.

It was late last summer, and a few months earlier the U.S. Department of Treasury had declared the region an American Viticultural Area (granting special land protection and tax incentives, not to mention recognition from the lucrative wine industry). Articles in food and drink mags had poured kerosene on the publicity fire. The tiny 4,000-person town of Chelan was about to explode. More than a dozen wineries now ringed the lake’s 55-mile shoreline. And rumor had it that everyone—from bed-and-breakfast proprietors to boating outfitters—was making bank on the local wine business and its newfound national attention. I had to see it for myself.

But seduced by the Columbia River’s crawl through Wenatchee National Forest—and scenic turnoff opportunities along Highway 97—I had allowed what was supposed to be a three-hour trek from Seattle to stretch into a four-hour, embarrassingly-late-for-dinner trek from Seattle. Fortunately, Chelanites proved to be more accommodating than 
I deserved.

Thirty minutes after calling Wapato Point and letting the voice on the phone guide me to the correct end of Quetilquasoon Road, I was sitting in the closed restaurant’s big empty dining room polishing off a 16-ounce steak with a glass of merlot. The voice belonged to co-owner Ben Williams, who now poured me a second goblet of wine. Head-shaven and muscular, he looked more like a SWAT operative in his black shirt and pants than a maitre d’.

Turns out Williams’s father-in-law is the progenitor of the Lake Chelan wine boom. He planted the first grape vine in the area in 1998 in order to rescue his moribund apple farm from financial ruin, showing neighboring cultivators that the soil could sustain more than Golden Delicious.

Also turns out I was right about my host. He’s a West Point–educated soldier who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006 as an Army intelligence officer. A military “spook.” A few years after marrying the winemaker’s daughter, Williams ditched the spy game for viticulture. The rumors were true. Everyone was getting into the vino biz in Chelan.

The next morning sunlight blazed through the sliding glass door of my deck at Campbell’s Resort. The surrounding lake was abuzz with activity. Kids floated on inner tubes. Jet skis growled in the distance. Bikinied women as pale as peeled apples soaked up rays along a thin ribbon of sandy beach.

After devouring eggs Benedict and honey-glazed bacon in the resort’s bustling cafe, I wandered onto Woodin Avenue, the town’s main strip. The asphalt baked under relentless rays—the temperature would reach 107 degrees by midafternoon—and tourists popped in and out of gift shops and wine stores.

Photo: Martin Bydalek

Woodin Avenue boasts bookstores, cafes, and wine shops.

A familiar voice called out: “Hey James.” I turned. Ben Williams’s bare pate shined like a silver bullet.

I knew one person in all of Chelan County and I just happened to run into him on the street? I thought of his exploits in military intelligence. Was Ben Williams tracking me? Nah. He’s just a nice guy who wants the world to know his town’s charm. He pointed me toward a bookstore (Riverwalk Books) and a coffee shop (Vogue Liquid Lounge) he thought I’d like, and we parted ways.

The bookstore was small, but had an impressive literary fiction section, and I found a couple edifying volumes on Washington wine. The coffee shop knocked out an Americano on par with espresso bars in Seattle. Nearby storefronts beckoned with the promise of adventure: a chartered boat ride across the lake, a guided horseback tour through the Wenatchee forest. I drained my cup of iced coffee and squinted in the sun. Lake Chelan and I were going to get along just fine.