Christina Lake

And my vacation continues! I wanted to write more last week but work got tooooo busy. After we spent some time in Princeton (there isn’t much there, ha. We did some swimming, hanging out in the river, and running), we zipped off to Christina Lake which wasn’t too far.

The river site at the campground. Living our best life!

There isn’t much of a town there but WOW the lake, it is just incredible. So warm- the warmest I have ever felt in Canada. Remarkable! The lake is also quite large but you can access it from a few different points. They do not allow dogs anywhere near the main lake at the provincial park, so we packed up our dog and went to the next park over where there was a big campsite AND they allowed dogs at the dog beach. Plus, the dog beach was super nice- usually it’s crappy and miserable, but this one was great.

Ice cream at Christina Lake, yumm!

We camped the two nights in Christina Lake at a small campsite that had it’s own river access with a sandy beach- I can’t tell you how incredible THAT felt, it was soooooooooo awesome. We basically had our own swimming hole shared with the other campers, and it was a very quiet campsite. So fortunate! I loved it.

The lake itself- sooo inviting.

We swam, camped out, went into ‘town’ for an ice cream and generally hung out in the sun for a few days. It was blazing hot out so that was key to be near the water. So amazing though 🙂 Gidget on the other hand had some complaints about camping…To be continued 😉

Ian and Gidget at Kalso. The adventure continues…

Back from vacation

UGH.

Back to reality indeed! We did get incredibly lucky on our trip- the Interior was starting to flame out, but we only had issues with smoke in Revelstoke and we were only there for a few days. Thank god. It is also an issue because no WAY does anyone want to be a tourist in a place that is being evacuated/needed for hotel rooms. How tone deaf would that be?? Yikes! So we had our holiday timed well, as the fires got a lot worse when we came home.

But otherwise, it went really nicely! We started off with a few nights in Princeton, which is kind of a small nowhere town but has gorgeous scenery, a nice river, a great restaurant, I guess one of two existing restaurants- (the Copper Pit!!) and some fun trails to run courtesy of the Kettle Valley Railway. Here are the first few photos 🙂

Rainbow Bridge at Manning Park

One of three accidents we saw on the trip. Everyone was fine, thankfully!

Manning Park

The town of Coalmont- a total ghost town outside of Princeton driving down this insane avalanche canyon road! No cell service at all!

Swimming in the Similkameen- it was COLD!!

Swimming in the Similkameen.

Love at low speed

Back from a week of holidays and wishing it was more like…THREE weeks. MAN.

Safety first! 

I went to the Interior (Kelowna) to visit my parents who moved there this winter. It was super hot, gorgeous weather, and I can’t complain! 🙂 I also celebrated a birthday, which was nice. We had black forest cake with sour cherries that we picked ourselves!! Can you believe it?

I flew, which is an experience on it’s own these days. All people in terminals and on the air plane must wear a mask, and there are no drink services. Instead, the air line gave out little baggies with a tiny water bottle, gloves, hand sanitizer, sanitation wipes, and a mask. I thought that was a pretty good touch, though I had my own water because I get super thirsty.

It was eerie, for sure though. I have not been close to people in months, and now we were crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder, all wearing masks. There was a temperature check at the gate, where they hold a little heat sensor to your forehead and then mark on your ticket.

Flying itself was fine, though I had approximately 4 screaming babies per airplane and no headphones, mine died the minute I got on the plane and I was trying to charge them up unsuccessfully the week before…:(

But anyways, it was about 34 deg in Kelowna! I took my dad trail riding to a place we used to go for years…Probably for about 20 years! It was called Mandy and Me, and it went under about 5 years or more ago. Now, a lovely young couple runs it as ‘Broken Rail Ranch’ and we enjoyed the same trails as before. Awesome eh?

The trails also run alongside a defunct sour cherry orchard, and the owner of the trail business said nobody picks it, so if we wanted, we could come and pick from it. And we did! The next day in the evening, we went to pick about… 50lbs of sour cherries.

And there were even more than this! So many cherries. 

They were great! I did realize the next day when we were pitting them that there were a ton of maggots in them too, hahaha. Whoops! No chemical sprays here! Good thing a little maggot eating isn’t bad for you.

Cherry picking with my family.

Our next adventures to be continued…

Holiday Part 2: Kangaroo Creek Farm!

When we decided to go to Kelowna for our summer trip, I knew I had to go back to Kangaroo Creek Farm. I went last year for my sister’s bachelorette party weekend and LOVED IT!

Unfortunately in the thick of summer, the farm is just swarming with children, which suck. So, it wasn’t quite as fun as when I went in May with the girls. But, Ian and I still enjoyed seeing all the animals, and had a listen to the reptile education session, which was great and very cool and informative. I learned a lot about turtles (they can feel the surface of their shells?!!).

We didn’t get to hold a joey, due to the overwhelming demand it put on the park staff and animals 😦 so that was a bummer. We did get to them cuddled up in baby carriages, which I love love loved! Sooooo cute. I want them!

I clearly have a maternal instinct- it is just for animals, NOT humans. Who knew? (I did tho..). 🙂

We were back at another brewery of course- Hwy 97 Brewery in Penticton!