Oct 20-21

We left Kelowna after 4 nights on Monday. The beauty and climate of the entire Okanagan area certainly explains why it is a popular area to move to, although the price of housing is somewhat comparable to back home, however there are less expensive areas if you seek them out. One final comment from the area is the smarts to dress up their hydro and other utility boxes with various pictures (see att.) vs. looking at drab gray or green boxes. A great idea.

Anyway, we headed off to Penticton this morning via West Kelowna, Peachland, and Summerland with a few winery stops on the way. The first couple we went to, Quails Gate and Mission Hill certainly exude a wealth level many time more than others we have seen. There IS money in making wine! One final stop we made was in Summerland at Dirty Laundry winery. The name was inspired after a brothel that was in the area back in the early 1900’s. It’s a quirky and sassy winery where the name of the wines and designs on the bottles were unique. (ie: Dangerous Liaison and Naught Chardonnay)

It was an overcast day with some sun that later turned into rain. I think BC is warming us up to “coastal weather”! We decided to experience a night at Camp Wally. Boon docking at Walmart with other RV’rs was a bit of an eye opener. There were several older (25 yr plus) van campers and some larger Class C and the original class A’s – again, these were likely 25 + years old. For those that know the show Breaking Bad, the RV on that show would have looked pretty good beside these ones. Throughout the trip, we have come to the realization that there are many transient workers moving from town to town finding work and living from these older units. A few of them had a pickup truck with them as well. In BC especially, RV’ing seems to be very popular and we are amazed at how many trailers, 5^th wheels and motor homes you see parked in people’s drives and storage areas. So we parked there early in the evening then walked about 1.5 km to a Boston Pizza for dinner. Although the original started in Penticton by the Jim Treliving on Dragon’s Den, it has been remodeled like the other ones in the chain.

Back to Camp Wally and with the assistance of a powered wi-fi antenna we have and Walmart providing free wi-fi, we were able to stream and watch a couple of TV shows prior to turning in for the night.

Today, we headed towards Hope BC and drove through a region of 250 km’s of varying climates from almost desert to deeply wooded forests as you can see in the one picture that has our RV in it. The roads were very windy as we traversed up and down through the Cascade Mountains. They were scenic, quiet roads as it is sparsely populated throughout the region passing through Princeton (pop ~ 3,000) and Hedley (yes the current music band named themselves after it). Arrived in Sunshine Valley, which also has an RV resort named after it for a quiet afternoon and swim and hot tub (both indoors) at this almost new resort. It’s part of a chain.

We may be “off the perch” for a few days as we are visiting friends in Harrison Hot Springs. Squawk soon!