Which actually wasn’t smoky really, but as the wildfires gathered strength I heard it got much, much worse. We did get incredibly lucky on this trip on the whole!
We drove through Vernon and it was wall-to-wall cars from Vernon to Kelowna and Kelowna was just terrible. Gridlock traffic the entire way. WTF??
Winery tasting with the family
We couldn’t check in to our hotel (damned Kelowna hotels, we stayed at the Prestige Beach location and I kind of hate it…) until after 4pm so we had hours to kill with Gidget. I decided I wanted to check out Gellatly’s Nut Farm which is also a beach and provincial/historical park. We couldn’t walk Gidget through the nut orchards because they apparently were worried that some dumbass child would mistake a dog shit for a nut (which then I think, they had it coming…) so we took turns cruising through the orchard and I found a hazelnut and a walnut! The walnut was interesting, all green and the nut inside the ‘fruit’. I had Ian dig it out and it stained his fingers for a week!!!
Summertime and the living is easy
We had dinner at my folks place, went for a swim and the next day met them in the morning for a swim and a nice visit to a winery close to their house.
That’s a big beer
We then staggered around in the heat downtown which was tougher than I thought, I felt so hot and dehydrated?!
Summerhill Winery’s pyramid of mystery
Back to my parents for dinner, birthday cake and a swim (which was awesome!), a walk to their beach locally and then back to the hotel. The next day we were up bright and early to drive to stay a night in Vancouver, where we ran the sea wall (yes!!) and had Moroccan dinner, which was very cool, and then back home- holidays all over!
A few years ago I went to a cocktail event here in Victoria and tried a fun pecan whiskey that was called Revelstoke because they wanted to ‘Stoke the Revel’ and man, it made me laugh every time I thought of it!
So naturally we went to Revelstoke to really get into the party scene 😉
Ok not really but after Christina Lake, we wanted to get some hiking in and my husband is a trip-planner extraordinaire (I am terrible at it, just awful) so we had something different to do and enjoy in each place. We camped for 1 night after an extremely long and kind of tough travel day (avoid Hwy 30…it’s 100km of freaking dirt road and can get very shifty for about 30kms and takes FOREVER)…. We camped at a site just outside the bridge and apparently next to the train, ha.
Marmots blend in really well to the rocks.
Not a restful night, really. Plus Gidget decided she hated camping and her max was 2 days, so she was in a deflated snit about it all day and night, refusing to eat, moping around, just nothing. Argh, dogs! The campsite was pretty lame, sites so close you could peer into your neighbours tent but it had excellent clean and nice washrooms with great showers, so no complaints there!
Ok for one night, no thanks for more- particularly if you are Gidget!
We then stayed at the Stoked Hotel and man the rooms were hilariously small- basically like a closet? Oh wait, no closet though, lol. Oh well Gidget was happy to be in a room again at last, where she belongs like a princess 🙂
Wild strawberries!
We did a small loop the first day of hiking at Revelstoke Mountain National Park (up to Inspiration Loop) and found SO many berries- it was amazing!! Thimbleberries, black huckleberries, blueberries, strawberries and wild raspberries. Lucky us! And…lucky for the bears, because we promptly walked into one on the trail. It stood up briefly, but we shouted as we walked back down the trail and it left us alone, thank god. I had Gidget in a backpack, so I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of a bear encounter…Eeek.
Yes there was snow! It was a sub-alpine lake we were heading to. Eva Lake.
We then went up to the ski jump and that is a cool 1km straight uphill, hot hot hot! Did some great strawberry picking on the way though.
We had a selection of great restaurants and bakeries to go to, so awesome. We took some bakery items hiking with us for a quick lunch, and it was delicious! That night we went out to the Craft Beer restaurant for some sweet beers, mac and cheese and a lame salad (ok the salad tasted great but the dressing was non-existent?!!) So a bit of a miss there.
View from the ski jump. Steeeeep
The next day we set out for a real hike and could leave Gidget in the room. We chose a very accessible loop at the Park, and it cost $20 to drive up and hike there. It was nice to be able to like drive 30 mins to the top of the mountain and hike from there- sooo easy to access, great for hikers like us who are not serious and don’t want to spend two days doing it.
The loop was about 6m, took us to two beautiful lakes, NO bears and three marmots were sighted!!! So amazing. We walk-ran it (I am still recovering from multiple leg injuries 6 months ago) and it was pretty rocky and tough in some spots. I also tripped as I am running in shoes that are no way appropriate for hiking and almost bailed face-first into a rock. Phew!!
It was beautiful to see and a great way to spend the day. We cruised back, chatted with the Park Rangers, and they suggested another short loop to read more about the Indigenous Peoples who lived on the land. It was an informative and fun little loop (1k?) and after that, a short run back to the car for another KM and we were done!
By that time it was getting very smoky. Unfortunately there are serious wildfires and one started up at Sicamous quite close to Revelstoke when we landed there. The smoke started blocking out the sun 😦 We had the great fortune to only be there for 1 really smoky day and then we were off to Kelowna to visit my family.
We enjoyed a new restaurant that night too- the Taco Club! I can highly recommend, good but pricey margaritas with some unusual twists, and I had the burrito bowl and NO WAY could I finish it- my husband had to. Too much food! Always a good thing 😉
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!
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!Â
Featuring…lots of haze and smoky skies, courtesy of the wildfire situation happening all over B.C. at the moment. In Victoria right now, it’s crazy smoky and the air quality is really poor. I am happy to say it wasn’t that bad in Kelowna- some high haze but still fairly warm and sunny. It got a lot worse when we left actually- they had to shut down the airports! Yikes…
Dirty Laundry winery.
Anyways we went to the interior for a bit of sun and summer warmth (that was only partially thwarted by the wilfires). We visited wineries, went on a run to the 12 trestles trail at the Kettle Valley Railway,. ate at restaurants, bought wine by the case (me), went to breweries and cideries, did some short hikes with Gidget and swimming! (pool, Similkimeen River and Okanagan Lake).
Hot dog! At Dirty Laundry winery.
All in all, it felt really good to get away.
Swimming in the Similkimeen. COLD!Â
Really smoky in Keremeos. View from a winery.
Finished the run at the Kettle Valley Railway. Hot but good!Â
A great weekend, followed by some intense strangeness and disquiet.
A death, crazy smoke covering the sky, blocking out the sun and raining ash on us, crimes, big and small.
It’s strange! I feel strange and smothered.
But anyways, let’s focus on the things that went right:
Rode this weekend (no polo though, was up-Island) and Oats was good! We even jumped the scary ‘skinny brush jump’ out in the field in a blazing hot day.
We canoed, probably for the first time in a hundred years for me- and took Gidget! She actually really enjoyed it. 🙂
I enjoyed many beers, cocktails and wine- always a good time.
We picked plums! Carrots! Beets! Chard!
Had happy hour with a good buddy on Friday AND got off work early.
Went swimming (floating) at Thetis Lake and hurt my neck paddling. Turns out I am older than I thought. Ha. It still hurts today though, which is not so funny…two days and counting.
Rode in a pretty intense dressage lesson last night, despite my sore neck. Not technical, but more like focusing on the elements of ‘lengthen’ strides. It was pretty good!
I ran! Lots of running and am happy with how my legs are feeling on the weekends- not so much during the week, they suck then, but hey weekends are awesome!
Here’s to more fun and adventure, despite the oppressive feelings that are threatening to crush us these days. It seriously feels like the apocalypse with this eerie red-grey sky!
The adventures of Mr. Oats 