Day 9 - Lake Okanagan and All That Jazz

It's hard to keep track of all that we've seen and all that we've done - but this morning will likely stay with us for a while. We woke up well. Having no rush to get anywhere (we had to drive a little over 200 km today and we couldn't check in before 3:00) we woke up naturally and had a relaxing breakfast. Coffee, tea, oatmeal - no hectic rush to get packed up, no imposing clock ticking in the background, it was lovely. We had time to let the tent dry, we went for a walk, and T even had time to do some yoga in full view of the mountains. It was wonderful! And because we bought our hot springs pass late yesterday, they were good until noon today - so at 11:30 we all suited up and headed for the pools. Canyon Hot Springs has a tackiness about it from the outside, but sitting in a lovely hot tub with a view of the mountains - there's not much better. 

We swam and soaked for 25 minutes - just until Gord was getting tired, and as we were towelling off the sign for fresh Coast Mountain Dairy ice cream - it was too much to resist. We ordered a few waffle cones, soaked in the scenery, and looked forward to our day ahead. Did we mention that Gord loves ice cream? Who doesn't though. He was given free choice between Mom's chocolate cheese cake and Dad's cookies and cream, and in the end the men stayed together. Whether he really preferred it or was only doing a favour to his Mom we'll never know, but by 12:30 we were strapped in and heading further west. 

We were heading to West Kelowna, to a BnB perched on the mountainside, but first we had to get through the tail end of the Rockies and after that the Northern towns on Lake Okanagan. As we slowly ambled our way through the Western Rockies (we still had to get through Revelstoke Nat'l Park) we were again struck with how beautiful it all is. Even leaving the dramatic peaks of the Rockies we were struck dumb by beautiful lake Okanagan and the desert peaks that define this area. There were fresh fruit stands all over, and even fresh goat's cheese stands. But the bulk of the fruit this week is cherries, and the baby was sleeping, so we just enjoyed the idyllic quality and kept moving. 

Now what looks short on paper doesn't always turn out to be so - used to 110 km speed limits on flat prairie roads the twisting 70 km trip took much longer than anticipated, but before too long we were beginning to see a change in scenery. Wine country was close!

The place was fairly simple to find, in that the directions were quite straight forward. The tricky part about getting there had to do with the steep roads and winding turns. Normally I'd love it, but Gord doesn't (yet) like holding on to how car seat as Dad speeds around corners, so we took it slow. Finally we arrived at Chez Nicole and were welcomed in by the proprietress (and her army of lovely K9s - things were looking up for Gord. Oh, and his parents too.

Here's our room:

And the view from our balcony:

And our bathroom:

And that was about it. We washed up and headed to a low key grill a few minutes away calls Sammy J's - think a Kelsey's crossed with a Milestones with a wine bar thrown in. The best part was that they were baby friendly (even though he wasn't restaurant friendly) and they let us have a dessert to go (peanut butter pie) - with that we made a quick stop at the adjacent 'liquor depot' for a local bottle of vino and our day was pretty much done.

Tomorrow we'll go south on the lake and search out some wineries and hopefully swim in the lake. We have dinner reservations at a fancy winery restaurant at 5:30, so we should be able to have a sophisticated bite before getting Gord down.

Sleep well.

TOTAL FUEL FILL UPS: 4

WILDLIFE: Do dogs count? Quail, lots of quail.