Washington Apple Harvest Festival

What there saying about Wenatchee .....
Biting into that crisp, juicy apple, an unblemished sphere fresh from the tree, triggered memories of long ago. The sweet aroma made me feel like a kid again as I munched away on a Red Delicious while touring Wenatchee and an orchard last fall in the heart of Washington State. Rarely do I get such a crunchy, flavor-packed sensation from supermarket apples.

It was harvest time in Wenatcheethe nation's No. 1 apple-growing region, and I was out to satisfy my appetite for the fruit and all its lore. My visit coincided with the annual Washington Apple Harvest Festival, held in Wenatchee the last Saturday in September.

Just as savoring apples brought back thoughts of simpler times, so did exploring the town of Wenatchee, the state's undisputed "Apple Capital." Nostalgia abounds in this Main Street community, a place Norman Rockwell would have loved. I guess you could say it's as American as, well, apple pie.

Smack dab in the middle of Washington State, on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains, Wenatchee stretches along the banks of the Columbia River. Across the river is East Wenatchee. Together the towns have a population of 33,613.

Sheltering the valley on either side are barren mountains, not the forested, snow-capped Cascades pictured on postcards and calendars. Indeed, on my first trip to the Evergreen State, I was surprised to find vistas were more brown than green. But the arid land, with its volcanic soil and 300 days of sunshine, is well-suited to growing apples, thanks to irrigation. The dry climate works against insect and disease problems, and gives the apple a smoother finish than in some other places.