Leavenworth Oktoberfest

Hundreds of people descended upon Leavenworth this weekend to take part in their annual Oktoberfest. What better place to celebrate than a tiny Bavarian town in the middle of nowhere? I stayed with Paul and Della in Wenatchee and met up with some of my friends Saturday afternoon to see what Oktoberfest was about. Turned out it really was all about the beer, with some hyper-vigilant cops thrown into the mix.

The atmosphere was much like what I would expect to see at a frat party: raucous laughing, a tower built entirely of empty beer cups, and plenty of people making fools of themselves. Toss in some live polka music and you’ve got yourself Oktoberfest! I particularly loved the band that headlined Saturday night in the party tent – polka versions of the Beatles and John Denver and multiple renditions of the chicken dance and a German drinking song that everyone seemed to know the lyrics to except us. Plenty of guys sported lederhosen (think Kurt from The Sound of Music) and everywhere you turned you ran into a girl in a little German dress (think St. Pauli beer).

Philip bought us toy laser guns that vendors were selling within the Oktoberfest boundaries, and we ran around for a while shooting each other and seeing if we could aim at certain targets with the laser (no people, save for an old college friend we ran into). Later that night, we were surprised by police officers who escorted two of our group out of the tent and proceeded to angrily lecture them on their use of the toy guns. I thought we were surely getting kicked out of the event, and we rounded up the rest of the group to join the other two (safety in numbers). They didn’t eject us, but they were angry and continued to harass us the rest of the night with dirty looks and flashlight pointing. At this point, I would like to interject. Really?! Officers, did you really have to haul out two friends to lecture them about toy guns? Let’s think about this. We probably had the LEAST to drink out of the hundreds of people there, and you’re picking on the ones with the lasers. There are guys clutching their beer steins and falling over themselves and you think we're a problem? I would say we're the least of your worries tonight. At least we are going to get in the car sober and not pose a threat to the rest of society. Speaking of driving sober, I'd also like to say a big thank you to the three police cars we saw pulling over likely drunk drivers after we left Leavenworth. We cheered when we saw those flashing lights. But next time officers, let's not take the lasers so seriously. Leavenworth is not an airport and we are not terrorists.

I mean come on, do we look like terrorists? Honestly.