The Last Day

Last Friday we left Oliver for home.  The day we head to Oliver and the day we head back are pretty hectic, and we never seem to be able to leave from either place at the time we would like.  Well of course it's all a function of what we are trying to get done before we head out, do less, leave earlier, dah!.  But there's just sooo much to do right now.  The last thing we did before we left Oliver was to take the dogs for a swim at the lake.  It always works better to tire them out before we start driving, that way they settle down better in the car.  We had meant to take them to the lake before the last day, but just didn't seem to get there.  They did get lots of walks and games of fetch at the dog park though.

A month ago when Meredith and I went to some garage sales on a Saturday that I wasn't at the farmer's market, I picked up a life jacket for Calli.  She can swim just fine, and loves it, but the only thing that she will fetch with any consistency, whether on land on in the water, is one of those orange street hockey balls.

I'm not sure if it's her eyesight or aging lack of coordination or... but most of the time now when she tries to grab the ball while she's swimming, she doesn't reach far enough and ends up just bumping it farther and farther away.  If she's heading straight out, that means she keeps heading farther and farther out into the lake.  We can't even call her back, as she can't hear us.  Then those repeated open mouth grabs means she starts to gag on water.  So while all this is happening at least now we don't have to worry about her getting tired and sinking.  She does seem to have the sense to give up after a bit, and will turn away, and then sometimes circle and give it another go.  At least on this second attempt she comes at the ball from a different angle, and is pushing it across the lake.  We did get smart and pick up the ball and wait until she heads out, and when she turns to look, we lobbed the ball between us and her, so then she was heading back in.  If she can touch the bottom, she had no problem getting the ball.

There were a couple of times that we had to send super fetcher Jake to rescue the ball, and there was one time that I was wondering if I was going to have to strip off and swim out and fetch her back.

After the dogs were out and dried off, the lake settled back to being like a mirror. Beautiful!

It was very pretty driving between Osoyoos and Keremeos.  There are two ways to get to Keremeos, south through Osoyoos, or north through Okanagan Falls and then you head southwest. Both take 45 minutes, give or take, but the Osoyoos route wins out fairly often because that is the closest McDonald's and we are rather partial to their $1.59 coffee and muffin deal!  These photos were between Osoyoos and Keremeos.  It was a beautiful Fall day.

There are even a couple of sets of 'Hoodoos' along the way.

After a quick stop at Keremeos for some apples and peaches, and a break for the dogs at the brake check above the mine west of Princeton, we finally made it back at 9pm.  Larry drove the daylight part of both trips.