Oct 15-17

First and foremost, we have learned to like being tourists in the “off-season” and especially during a work day when very few other tourists are around.

We left Salmon Arm after doing nothing touristy for a day. Tourists need days off too, to do laundry, pay bills and just laze around doing very little. We had one of those days. The on board generator we have, has failed to start during the trip so far, but fortunately, there hasn’t been to many times when we really needed it. For those that don’t know, the generator is basically needed for “dry camping” (ie: no electrical supply). It can be used to charge the “house” batteries and also has a power inverter in it so you can plug in and run normal household appliances. We found out early on when stopping for lunch and w/o the generator that you can’t use the microwave or toaster, etc. Anyway, after a few calls we found a place in Vernon BC, which is just south of Salmon Arm that could look at it. We arrived there on Thursday at 9:30 and by 10 am Bernie, their tech, had tweaked and tuned it, and it started with a purr! It was music to our ears. Now we can boon dock where every we want! Onward to Kelowna and the Okanagan Valley. (the West coast fruit basket)

As we approached Kelowna area, a sign caught our interest saying scenic route, so off 97b we went to a little village called Oyama and a tourist kiosk. After buying a bag of local apples and looking at some brochures, we headed down the round into Lake Country region, we started on the Scenic Sip wine tour – hey it was 2 pm back home! Again of the 6 wineries we went to, most of them just had us at the sipping bar. Since I was driving, I sipped a little less. These wineries where all relatively new( less than 10 years) with a few opening up their wine tasting showrooms as early as last weekend(Arrowleaf). One winery Ex Nihilo, which translates to “something out of nothing” has an affiliation with a world-renown portrait artist, Igor Babailov. Google him and you’ll see that he has done paintings for many famous people. The whole story and connection is much longer, but they have a picture there sketched by Igor and he has visited the winery couple of times. These 6 wineries are in a fairly small region and are up some steep hills. Although the RV is over 31’ long, we found ourselves in some small parking lots that day, and maneuvered, backed up, etc. like we have been doing it for years. I doubt we’ll become a long haul trucker couple though.

We arrived at our site for 4 nights at Scenic View RV Park about 5 km’s from downtown Kelowna late afternoon. It was 19 deg C and nice to see the fall colours have returned.

The Kelowna area has a great climate year round with warm spring to fall weather and reasonable winters with daily averages of 1 deg. For the golfers, your season is 9 months – not bad! The Okanagan region and south to almost the US border has about 140 wineries and an abundance of fruit and vegetable producers much like Niagara. There is evidence of lots of money in this region, looking at some of the homes. We went downtown yesterday to explore the waterfront and have lunch. The city of Kelowna (population 120,000) needs to be commended on what they have accomplished with their waterfront. One word – IMPRESSIVE.

They have developed a small inner waterway, were small craft in a controlled fashion can come into. Everything is very clean and well laid out. They even blend their utility boxes by painting flowers or greenery on them. We had a great time walking around (on a work day) with very few other tourists around. A bit of rain earlier in the morning before we arrived, had stopped but left the sky overcast, so the colours aren’t jumping out like I would have liked.

We stocked up on groceries and back “home” late afternoon.

Enjoy your weekend