Okanagan Falls

So yeah, we figured Okanagan Falls was a good place to be.  We spent three nights there. 

We did lots of walking and bike riding. The first full day we walked up the side of Skaha lake on the TC trail for quite a ways.  And then of course found a place with good access to the lake, and the dogs got a good swim.  Skaha Lake is much warmer than the Similkameen River.

Afterwards Larry and I headed off south down the side of the Okanagan River.  It runs in a channel with dykes on each side, and there are a few weirs along the way, with dramatic warning signs about the certainty of drowing if you decided you wanted to swim in the turbulence below the weir.

At the end we were looking at Vaseaux Lake, which is between OK Falls and Oliver.  A great place for a blanket, a bottle of wine, and whatever you like best with that.

We had to make do with water and a couple of granola bars.

The next day we took the dogs down that same walk.  Not a relaxing walk.  Jake and Luna kept heading to the water, and I kept having a fit every time they got too close to the weirs and their turbulence.  All the extra walks the dogs were getting had caught up with Calli, and her back end was collapsing.  I had taken a harness along for just that situation, but it was a lot of hard work holding her up.  We were glad to get back to the truck and go exploring up Green Valley Road.  We did figure out where we went wrong on our trip into the OK Falls/Oliver area.

Lots of salmon swimming up the river, and we could see a few trying to jump up the weirs.  I tried to get pictures of the jumping, but despite hanging over the rail of the bridge, and trying to be patient, it never worked in my favour.

The next afternoon Larry and I got on our bikes and rode over that trestle bridge and along the trail to see how close we could get to Penticton before we ran out of daylight.  

We only got 2/3 of the way, because I got distracted by some big patches of Oregon Grapes, and had to stop and pick a couple of bags.

We did hit a stretch that passed through a residential area, at Kaleden.  This is the Kaleden Hotel, or was.  Looked like a good place to me for a haunted house at Halloween.

And then there was the dog beach at the park on the east side of the campsite.  Great sand, shallow water.  The lake always started off calm, but the wind would pick up and blow straight off the lake.  Not particularly pleasant if you weren't in a bit of a sheltered spot.  This last morning it was just a breeze, you can see the ripples in the next photo.  Much nicer:)

You had to throw the balls out a long way before the dogs had to swim.

We fit in one last bike ride before we headed home.  The weather this day was perfect, with very little wind. I certainly could have stayed longer.

 This is looking west across the Okanagan River where we walked and rode, with Green Valley Road in the background.  It winds it's way up to that low spot between the hills. That large green spot on that hill to the left is a vineyard.

Grapes behind deer fencing and under bird netting were everywhere.

We headed home about mid afternoon, with a dog stop at Princeton and the cold Similkameen River again.

It was a bit of a white knuckle ride from Princeton to Hope, it was dark through the last half of that stretch.  I sure didn't remember doing all that uphill on the way out.  It was much steeper going back down:(, and the brake on my side of the truck just didn't seem to work at all.  A relief to get back down to the relatively flat land.  

And then we got home and found out that the tail lights of the trailer weren't working.  Lovely.  At least this time we had remembered to put insurance on the trailer, which we hadn't remembered to do when we took the one day trip to Ft. Langley.  

It's always good to get home, I guess, although I wasn't so sure about it this time.

It was a great trip, mostly relaxing, I got two books read.

The Old Ewe and April had both survived our neglect. 

My mother.....well we are still working on that.