I'm having one of those frustrating computer nights ... too many others blogging or something so the entries may appear sporadically ... every 15 minutes or so.

Is this Germany, or what? Didn't we just leave that country?

No, not really. This is Leavenworth, Washington, but they have done a really good job of replicating the original. Unlike New Braunfels, Texas, which started as a German community over a hundred years ago and slowly has been Anglified since, Leavenworth up until the 1980s was a dying small village on the road to nowhere. In the 80s the town decided to adopt the German theme and has done an impressive overhaul in architecture and feel.