May 2nd - Steveston
We've been trying to get Ray's Mom out and about while we're here. We went to her apartment and after a quick love-in with Freya headed to Steveston as we've never seen it
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| I wuv you Grandma! |
May 5th - Gardens at Peace Arch Park and Serpentine Fen
While I am looking after my
Dad, Ray spent some time taking pictures of the lovely gardens at the RV Park
where we are staying.
As there is nowhere to easily walk the dog, he drives 5 minutes down the
road to Serpentine Fen and managed to snap these glorious pictures last night.
May 11th - Blackie Spit Park
Ray here.... I'm getting to
be a regular contributor to the blog. The last four weeks in a row I've
gone for massage therapy for muscle pain in my back. The first two
sessions were very relaxing but the effect only lasted until the next day.
The third session seemed to just make the next two days very
uncomfortable. The fourth session caused a lengthy back spasm, which I
haven't had since before the surgeries. Needless to say I haven't been
able to go for as many walks, which is my recommended exercise.
Well, after a five day break and a nice hot tub at
the White Rock community pool, it was time to take a leisurely walk at a park.
The closest (new to me) park happened to be Blackie Spit. The park
is just to the north of Crescent Beach at the mouth of the Nicomekl River at
Boundary Bay. There is a waterfront trail that connects the two
locations. It's a beautiful park and without further ado, here are some
pictures.
Mother's Day Dinner - 2015-05-12
With Betty away and me
staying at Dad's to provide care, I decided to host a Mother's Day Dinner for
Ray's mom here at Dad's with Garrett. I also invited Betty's daughter, Kerri,
husband Steve and granddaughter Alyse. Betty left me a 10lb ham in the
fridge and I needed other people to help eat it! It's a long time since
I hosted 8 people for dinner. Took me all day preparing but everything turned
out pretty good ... or so I am told. With keeping a 2800 sq ft house clean and
tidy, and looking after Dad I sure do not miss having my own house, my portable
house on wheels is just fine.
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Mum, Garrett, Dad and Kerri
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Steve and Alysse occupying the dogs, Kira, Freya and their dog Gus.
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Kerri using her phone for Dad to "Facetime" Betty
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May 13 - Opie
After a week and a half,
Dad and Betty's cat, Opie has finally deemed me worthy of giving him some
affection. The first few days I rarely saw him and he ended up outside one
night overnight as he refused to come in even though he was only 5 feet away
from me. Now he follows me around when he is not sleeping and even lays beside
me while I watch TV in the evening.
Osoyoos, BC - 2015-05-20
Last Friday we caught up
with our friends John and Joane again, and enjoyed a lovely fish and chip lunch on
the boardwalk in White Rock. What fantastic weather. Could only stay for an
hour or so as I was still looking after my Dad.
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John and
Joane Mahon |
Betty came home from her unexpected trip to Houston Texas so we finally
made it to Osoyoos after a 2 week delay. Had a few hiccups before leaving ...
one of the bedroom slides would not retract. After a bit of an internet search
we sourced it to a wire on the slide controller.
Here are some photos from the drive.
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The Hope Slide
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Free camping area by the lookout for the slide.
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Manning Park Lodge |
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Similkameen River
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Down, down, into Sicamous.
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Spotted Lake (Ray will go back and take better pictures.)
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| Osoyoos Lake |
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| Still going downhill. The coach handled well, with very little braking
needed. |
We arrived to sunny skies and warm temps. Yeah! The campsite is
everything I hoped, being right on the water. We pulled straight in so we had
the view. The site is only about 30 feet wide so I'm glad I picked one
with a beach access on one side so you have the illusion of a little more room.
The sites on the other side of us probably will only fill up on weekends
for now. Here is a picture of what we look at out the front window.
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| Home sweet home for a month |
Freya sure enjoyed swimming, we must have tired her out as she did not
move all night and I had to wake her up at 7am.
After cooking and cleaning for 2 weeks, including cooking dinner for 8
on Mother's Day, Ray took me out to the restaurant at the resort called Talon.
The wine was fantastic and the dinner was good but not worth the $$. Oh well,
at least we had a fabulous view and I did not have to cook!
Tinhorn Creek Winery - 2015
They say
bad things happen in 3's! Well I think that we are done. When we went to leave
on Monday morning the bedroom slide on the drivers slide would not retract as I
mentioned in the previous post. (# 1) Yesterday, we were going to go and
check out Burnell Lake Forest Service Site close to Oliver just up the highway
a little ways . Part way up the road, smoke was coming out of the hood of
the car and in through the air conditioning. We stopped and opened the hood but
could not see where fluid was leaking. We decided to turn around and then the
power steering quit so I manhandled the car back down the hill to Oliver.
(#2) Ray was madly googling on his phone for repair shops in Oliver and after
trying 2 with no appointments available, we stopped at Canadian Tire and they
took us right in. It turned out that when we had a leaking power steering hose
replaced last week in White Rock at the Ford dealership, they neglected to
tighten a bolt on the line and the whole thing worked itself loose and dumped
out all of the fluid and could have started a fire! Turned out to be an easy
fix but 1a 1/2 hour delay sitting in our strongback chairs outside of the
store, fortunately in the shade, put our plans are out the window.
I noticed on the way there that we passed the Tinhorn Creek Winery which also have a restaurant, so we decided to treat ourselves for lunch after the stress of
the morning. What a view! The chef's special of soup and a stoned fired pizza
were awesome. The wine pairing with the meal inspired me to go to the
tasting bar and buy a couple of bottles for myself to drink later.
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That is the restaurant up on the left.
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The tasting room store with the fermentation tanks in the basement.
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Lots and lots of wine stored in the next building.
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Looking towards Osoyoos
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Looking straight out at Oliver
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Looking down on the amphitheatre where they hold summer concerts.
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We came back to the campsite after lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon in
the shade or in the water as it got up to 32.5 degrees by late afternoon. Thank
goodness for air conditioning in the rig. We have only 30 amp power so only 1
unit is on but seemed to keep the temp about 77 degrees with the blinds down,
so not too bad. Around 8:30 pm it cooled off to about 25 degrees outside
and we were in watching some taped shows on TV. All of a sudden the power
flickered, the TV's restarted so we checked and we were running only on the
inverter. Ray went outside to check the power box and the plug pigtail was
totally melted. (#3) Fortunately we had installed a hardwired surge protector
so all our electronics are fine. So no power all night and no air .... was a
little warm but we had all of the windows open that we could. It was still 15
degrees outside when we got up at 6:30am.
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Hmmmmh....
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They
came around 9:30 this morning and replaced the plug and paid us for the new
pigtail we had to purchase in town to replace our melted one.
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So that
was the three! With all of the incidents Ray and I just carried on and did not
get too upset so Ray is definitely feeling better! |
May 23rd - Walking Picture Tour of Nk'Mip and
Osoyoos
While on various dog walks,
Ray took some pictures of the campsite and some of the parks in downtown
Osoyoos he remembered as a kid when his parents used to bring him here in the
summers to camp.
First, pictures from the Nk'Mip RV Park.
These cherries are almost ready ... this orchard is on the road to the campsite.
Ray found the source of all of the white puffs that float by us in the wind. A big cottonwood tree. It looked like snow on the ground at first glance. Lots of nesting material for all of the birds that go by, a lot of this stuff in their beaks.
The next
pictures are of the waterfront parks in downtown Osoyoos.
Cottonwood Park
This is the area where my parents took Ryan and me to camp for summer vacations.
The condo's in the pictures below are where the campsite used to be.
The lagoon shoreline was full of bull rushes and we spotted the odd
turtle. The townhouse complex is very large and covers the empty field
and swamp I remember beside the old campsite.
The two pictures below are taken along the spit where we could walk
around the whole lagoon. There is now a channel through the spit so I
couldn't walk too far. The spit used to be a sandy beach with swamp grass
and lots of 6' high cottonwoods. As you can see now it's pavement, grass
and foreign species.... absolutely no cottonwood, but called Cottonwood Park.
Go figure.
Osoyoos Waterfront
This picture is taken from the causeway bridge
looking north. In the distance there would have been a diving platform,
grandstand, snack stand. Now we've got grass and sand for the apartments.
The following series of pics are taken with the new telephoto lens from
our campsite.
Pioneer Walkway
The next bunch of pictures are taken along the
causeway to the east of the bridge, called the Pioneer Walkway. Forty
years ago this was nothing but big rocks (well to a kid anyway) and intertwined
with bush so basically unusable space. They've done a beautiful job of
fixing it up. It's also off-leash except June, July and August.
Just across the bridge from the Pioneer Walkway is the Veterans Memorial Park:
May 24 - A sunny drive around Skaha Lake
Another glorious sunny day, so we decided to pack up a picnic lunch and check out 2 provincial parks
fairly close to us, Vaseux Lake Provincial Park and Okanagan Falls Provincial
Park. Both turned out to be way too small for us so we can strike them off our
possibles list.
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Notice my "high fashion" look as I try to keep my skin covered
in 30+ degree weather!
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Looking across the lake to we think "The Blasted Church
Winery".
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We arrived shortly in Penticton with Skaha Lake on the right and
Okanagan Lake on the left. Here are some pictures of Skaha Beach.
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| Skaha Beach |
We carried on and turned right down Eastside Road (nicknamed
"Corkscrew Drive") back towards Okanagan Falls. We were keeping our
eyes out for a place to stop for lunch. A couple of kilometers down the windy
road we came upon an off leash fenced dog park with a beach so Freya got
a chance to meet a few dogs and go for a swim.
With our tummies grumbling we got back in the car to search for a picnic
spot suitable for us and Freya. We travelled no more than 5 minutes and whahoo.
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| What a view! |
After a lovely break we continued down corkscrew drive.
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A pretty little vineyard by the lake.
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Back on highway 97 towards Oliver we decided to stop at the Jackson
Triggs winery for some wine tasting. We had noticed when we left earlier
this morning that the "Half Corked Marathon" was on, This is an
annual event. Contestants run a half marathon through six wineries and have
samples at each. It is a all fun event and the runners wear costumes and
there is a van to pick up stragglers. It's limited to 1000 entrants by
lottery only. Here's a link for the event. Here are some pictures of the Jackson Triggs Winery. We were able to tie
Freya up under a tree with some water so we could go into the tasting shop.
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A small part of the vineyard towards Penticton.
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A lovely few hours and back at home to sit on the beach in the shade in
31 degrees.
May 25th - Haynes Point Provincial Park, Osoyoos, BC
Today's destination is a
short drive to Haynes Point Provincial Park here in Osoyoos to check out if any
of the campsites there would fit us. We were amazed there qre at
least 1/2 dozen sites that would fit us. Surprise, surprise. Definitely windy
though. They also have a dog swimming beach and quite a large overflow area if
the campsite is full.
Here are a few pictures.
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Looking down the south side of the spit from the dog beach
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| Looking north towards Osoyoos and Penticton |
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| Trail to picnic site. |
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Looking towards Osoyoos. The foreground shows what Cottonwood Park
used to look like
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One of the campsites that would fit with a nice stairway to your own
private beach.
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When we
got back to the coach later in the afternoon, the winds came up and then the
thunder and lightning and about a couple hours of rain.
May 26th - Drive to Kettle Valley Provincial Park
The wind is up when we
woke up even though the sun was out. It was a bit chilly to sit outside so Ray
and I decided to drive up Highway 3 to check out Jolly Creek Recreation
site and on Highway 33 check out the Kettle Valley Provincial Park which is only 5 km up that road. With our lunch packed off we went.
(Coming back from Kettle Valley Provincial Park to Osoyoos only took 45
minutes.)
Leaving Osoyoos and going up, up, up from 900 some
odd feet in elevation to the top of Anarchist Mountain at 4000 feet we were
amazed at the views. Lots of switch backs so I think when we leave I will drive
the car separately up to the top and then hook up.
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Ray's new zoom lens sure works great. This picture is Haynes Point taken
from the Anarchist Mountain viewpoint.
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Looking towards Orville, WA
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Shows the Okanagan River exiting Osoyoos Lake
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Shows the twisty road going down into Osoyoos.
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There
are 2 observatories up on top of the hill.
Osoyoos Observatory Bed & Breakfast offers tours of the Universe ... Jack and Alice Newton's bed and breakfast with their observatory dome.
You leave the desert and get up into the high plateau grasslands. I
drove us through a few isolated showers and broke into the sunshine.
The Jolly Creek Rec Site is on the way to Mount Baldy
Ski area. You turn down another road and the pavement takes you to about 1 km
of good gravel and then 1/2 km back onto a narrow pavement road. It is a fairly
steep incline to get to the site but very doable for our rig. Total about
2 km from the highway. This site is free. There is definitely room for us.
(This stop of course was in one of the few showers we were in!) It was only 11
degrees here and 18 degrees when we left Osoyoos.
Lots of farms on the way
Just before the turnoff in Rock Creek for Highway 33 we stopped at
Johnstone Creek Provincial Park which is right by the highway. Small campsite
but at least 5 sites would fit us for an overnight stop travelling through.
Satellite TV would be iffy but cell coverage was good.
Travelling along the Kettle River was very pretty.
There is another tight hairpin turn on this highway where as a friend of ours
puts it "you can see your tail lights in your rearview mirror".
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| Rock Creek above and below |
Reaching
the Kettle Valley Provincial Park we drove through the campsite and found quite
a few first come first serve campsites that would fit us and we would also get
satellite TV. Cell coverage was 4G 3bar so fantastic. Fees though are $30/night
but worth it for a few days to visit the area.
We went to the day use area right on the river and ate lunch looking at the river and the old railway trestle that is now part of the TransCanada Trail. The river is fairly high right now so we did not see anyone kayaking or tubing! The temperature however was 20 degrees this afternoon which was so much warmer than Jolly Creek.
After eating and relaxing for a while we went on a short walk over the
trestle. Freya isn't too sure about crossing it and went over pretty slow
crouching down.
What a gorgeous day. Back in the car and shortly we were back in Osoyoos
sitting on our beach watching kite surfers playing in the waves and wind.
Ray was
taking Freya for her last walk last night and by the convenience store in the
park they came upon a baby rattlesnake. Fortunately, Freya jumped back out of
strike range before Ray knew what was going on. Apparently, they follow the mouse holes under the snake
fences into the campsite, feed and then return to the hillside at dusk. We will
have to be more vigilant! The park wants you to report a sighting so they can lasso it and move it away.
Spotted Lake - 2015-05-27
A few days ago, Ray drove
back up the highway a short ways to get more pictures of the spotted lake. It
is on Native land and you can only view it from a viewpoint and not get any
closer. A good chance to test out his new zoom lens. The colours in the lake and enhanced as it dries out through the summer, so being only May, the colours aren't as dramatic
(From
Wikapedia) Spotted Lake is a saline
endorheic alkali lake located northwest of Osoyoos in the eastern Similkameen
Valley ofBritish Columbia, Canada, accessed via Highway 3. Spotted Lake is
richly concentrated with various minerals. It contains dense deposits of
magnesium sulfate,calcium and sodium sulphates. It also contains high
concentrations of eight other minerals and lower amounts ofsilver and titanium.
Most of the
water in the lake evaporates over the summer, revealing colorful mineral
deposits. Large “spots” on the lake appear and are colored according to the
mineral composition and seasonal amount of precipitation. Magnesium sulfate,
which crystallizes in the summer, is a major contributor to spot color. In the
summer, remaining minerals in the lake harden to form natural “walkways” around
and between the spots.
May 28th - Forest Service Sites
Yesterday
after messing around getting my chores done, we decided to take a drive to
check out some Forest Service Sites that we passed on our way to Osoyoos for
future possibilities. This picture is driving back towards Keremeos.
Beautiful country.
We drove
through the small town of Hedley. This is an old gold mining town. Most of the
businesses are closed including the old Nickel Plate Restaurant that the
Greyhound Bus used to stop at. Lots of old houses and surprising they all
seemed to be well-maintained.
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| Imagine the forces of nature to create these patterns! |
First up was the Old Hedley Road sites just west of Hedley. We've been
told it is a great spot to stop at while travelling through. Very high bank
sites with the Similkameen River below. There were several sites that would fit
us and they had easy access off the road. (Also good for our friends Steve and
Dianne.) These sites also have cell service. Just as you started down this road
off Highway 3 there is a large gravel area you could also stay at overnight
that would fit any unit with a tow.
Next a short way up the highway towards Keremeos is the Pickard
Creek Recreation Site which is right on the river. There were a couple of sites
that would fit us, as well. (not Steve and Dianne). This one other than a
couple of sites was heavily treed. Did not bother with any pictures as we
probably would stay at the Old Hedley site instead.
Driving back towards Keromeos we took a road to the
right across the Red Bridge on the way to Cathedral Provincial Park. There are
several different recreation sites down this road. The road is paved until a
couple of kilometers before the recreation sites. The road is a well graded two
lane road and l think it has calcium on it as there was no dust. These sites
were only 10 minutes off the highway. The Red Bridge sites had 2 sites out of
the 11 sites that would fit us. (Not Steve and Dianne) These sites are right
beside the Ashnola River. Very pretty. No cell service. This would be a
destination though as getting positioned would take a little work.
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The single lane "Red Bridge" at the start of the road.
The view of the Similkameen River on the side of the road.
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This one is further down the narrow road and we would have to do a little brushing to get to it.
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This was the first accessible one and would be easiest to get into.
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Ray and I carried on further down the road to the next site called
Tunnel Mountain. This site had 4 campsites and 2 we would fit in. Very pretty
as well. More open than Red Bridge. (Yes for Dianne and Steve).
Further down the road was Horseshoe Canyon and Cathedral Park. There was
nothing at any of these areas that would fit us. So I turned us around and headed back to
Keromos for lunch at a classic diner. They served great hamburgers. The drive back is very pretty and warranted a few more pictures.
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Shortly
after we returned to our campsite and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon sitting
outside looking at the lake. Another great day!
May 29th - Burrowing Owl Winery
Our time in Osoyoos/Oliver
is coming to an end shortly. This morning under somewhat cloudy skies we
decided to go to the last winery that was on "our list" to visit, the
Burrowing Owl just 15 minutes down the highway. They also have a fine dining restaurant
but we decided to spend the $$ on 2 bottles of wine instead. Here are a few
pictures.
On the way to the winery we passed this Osoyoos Oxbow's Wildlife Refuge,
which is at the north end of Osoyoos Lake.
Me
thinks I am going to enjoy some awesome wine in the next month or so! Score!
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