This property is located about 100 miles East of Seattle. It lies between the eastern edge of the Cascade mountain range and Western edge of Washington’s high desert. Summers are not too hot but sunny and dry. Winters are cold and snowy. Spring and fall are cool and wet.
Cle Elum and its southern sister, aptly named South Cle Elum have a combined population of 2500 people. Roslyn, it next door neighbor has almost 600 full time residents.
Roslyn is the town where the very Popular 80’s TV show Northern Exposure was filmed
Our biggest city, ie more than one grocery store, is our county seat, Ellensburg. There are 21,000 people and a major State University calling it home. Its 25 miles away so I don’t really count it as an Out and About place. I really just go over there when I have a hankering for some bureaucracy. So not very often.
The area rebounded pretty quickly from Covid. The businesses that didn’t make it have already been replaced and more are coming. There are a couple of restaurants that have bars that are busy a couple of nights a week. There are four coffee shops, two pot shops, a steak house, a farm to table restaurant and a couple of fast food restaurants. One of the gas stations has a subway franchise and there are two hamburger stands.
Since, I moved there, a couple breweries have opened:
Dru Bru and Mule and Elk our Main street is staying busy with a new wine tasting room and a Tapas restaurant. And a restaurant mashup serving american pub food and Teriyaki.
Roslyn has a whiskey distillery, a brewery of its own and a little wine bar with a nice outdoor deck. The main draw, though, is The Brick Saloon. There is a web cam to check the line to get in (and the weather). Additionally there is a coffee shop/book store and a couple restaurants and cafes. A bike shop and some gift shops to while some romantic weekend free time away from the high resort just around the corner. Roslyn used to be a pretty major coal mining town and its tiny little history museum is worth a visit.
Roslyn has a large resort like community built next to it called Suncadia. I go over there when I get an urge to ride my bike in relatively slow traffic, give my lungs a work out on the 400 steps between the resort hotel and the river, or just hike around the park like grounds. There is a golf course and day spa. In the winter, There are 3 ski resorts within a couple of hours. endless snowshoe and x-ctry ski trails. Its also a center for back country snow mobile riding.
With our gas stations, grocery store and coffee shops, Cle Elum is mostly a supply stop on the way to someplace else. There are a number of mid range hotels that probably have never had to change the bulb on the “No” side of the vacancy sign. They only really get busy when the pass is closed because of a snow storm. That only happens once or twice a year.
Cle Elum hasn’t really figured out how to be a tourist attraction, They seem happy to supply tourists on their way to to somewhere else. Roslyn, on the other hand, goes all out. to get and keep folks in town. They even have enough stuff going on that they can put out a calendar each spring for the weekly events planned for the summer.
The annual Logging Show is non stop fun
Although canceled by the covid in 2020, I am hoping the vintage trailer rally will happen again. 
There is a weekly farmer’s market on the main street.
Outdoor movies on Saturday nights
Foot Races and bike rides.
Downhill mountain biking can be accessed from my property (with some effort).