A Place called Suncadia

After time spent with the Cousin and her Husband, plus a few family members, we really wanted a place to go off to by ourselves. With the current situation, staying in another place is not something to do carelessly. We found a fabulous condo at Suncadia that we were comfortable with renting, and the owner felt comfortable with us coming there after we explained our unique situation! Suncadia is on the east side of the Cascade Mountains as you’re coming down off the foothills. It’s still enough elevation that it gets extensive snowfall in the winter, but being on the east side of the mountains it has fabulous spring and summer weather. It’s a large (LARGE!) resort just outside of the town of Roslyn. You may never have heard of Roslyn, but you may have seen it. It was the town of Cicely, Alaska in the show Northern Exposure. One other show that used the town is the The Man in the High Castle (on Amazon) – I did not know this! Apparently, the Roslyn Cafe was featured in Twin Peaks. Quite the filmography for a tiny place!

Back to Suncadia itself. I haven’t had a lot of experience in resort type places, so I was pretty impressed. The Lodge, which is sort of the main building, is run by Hyatt Hotels, but contains a lot of condo-type units, plus a coffee shop (still the PNW!), restaurants, bar, and shops – none of which were open. The Lodge was really beautiful .

Our condo was a spacious one bedroom with a full kitchen and a small patio. I think this place was probably way out of our price range under normal circumstances. The bathroom was nearly as big as the one we had at the Palazzo in Las Vegas! Lovely bath tub 😍 I could have stayed here much longer than a week.

As you can see from the photo of the Lodge, it sits on a hillside. There is a pretty river running down below and a massive field that is ideal for flying kites. The thing is…you have to get down there. It might be possible to drive, but I didn’t readily see way to do that – no, there is a staircase. It’s called 1,000 steps. It wasn’t really 1,000 stairs, but it sure feels like it!

I believe I was prompted to climb down and back up this crazy stairway by having made pancakes for breakfast. We felt quite proud of ourselves when we were back at the top – no tears or whining or anything! It was completely worth it once we were down at the river level. The water was incredibly clear (and cold!).

Of course, being a resort, there are all kinds of activities. There are two golf courses (with a third to be built eventually), a massive aquatic facility, a lake stocked with fish, multiple playgrounds, a winery/restaurant, and many different “neighborhoods” – with anything from condos to incredible single family homes that are probably some Microsoft executive’s weekend cabin. It was obvious that some people did live there year round however.

Setting is beautiful – mountains aren’t far off with evergreens as far as you see, the river, bald eagles flying about…so peaceful. I’m sure in the height of summer, on a weekend (under normal circumstances) this place is crawling with people. But we really enjoyed the peace and solitude. It was no problem keeping your distance from others!

I would have no problem going back to Suncadia anytime! There is so much to do on the properties – you can be as busy or sedate as you choose. There was a really nice distillery that was selling hand sanitizer (along with bourbon) – we did our part to try to support them. We were pleased with the restaurants that we did try. We may just have to plan another stay at Suncadia…