Monday, August 28, 2017
Today we crossed back into the lower 48 states. The border crossing was only about 7 miles from the RV park. We were asked if we had any pets, guns or fresh fruit. We did have fresh fruit. They pulled us to the side and came inside to see what we had. They took our tomatoes and mandrin oranges, but left the peaches, apricots, grapes, apples & bananas. We were only detained about 7 minutes.
We arrived at Wenatchee Confluence State Park shortly after 1pm. It was bright sunny and about 83 F.
We have a beautiful full-hookup site with large shade trees. Most state parks have larger sites than privately owned RV parks and this one is no exception.
I need to wash the bugs off the windshield and front of the coach, but feel I need a little rest first. Then I just procrastinated. Finally about 5pm I went outside to wash bugs. Wow what a surprise. The skies were smoke filled.
That little red ball in the sky is the sun at 5pm. That is how thick the smoke is.
We took a walk after dinner. Doesn't this look like sunset, instead of 7pm. This doesn't really show how red the sun looked, but this was the best picture.
Then in less than 30 seconds, the sun was hidden in the clouds.
The smokey clouds do make for a pretty sunsets.
Above and below are 2 bridges that cross the 2 rivers that converge near Wenatchee. The Wenatchee River flows into the Columbia River just north of Wenatchee.
While we were near the swimming area on the Columbia River here in the park, we saw this osprey. As we walked a little further, we could see a second osprey a little below the first one in the same dead tree.
The second osprey was eating a little fish.
We were surprised at the reflection in the swimming area even though the skies were so smokey.
We have a half moon tonight. There was a clearing in the sky for a moment and Tic was able to get this great shot of the moon. We are expecting this to be a wonderfully peaceful place to spend 2 nights.
Saturday & Sunday, August 26 & 27, 2017
This morning we woke up to a beautiful morning in Vernon.
Had to have one more picture of our beautiful backyard.
Off we go to Osoyoos about 2.5 hours down the road.
We drove down Hwy 97 through Oliver to Osoyoos. We enjoy these fun maps.
We arrived at the First Nations RV Resort we are staying at. The name is pronounced in-ka-meep.
This metal art was at the intersection of our turn to go to the RV park.
After driving through many low hanging willow tree limbs here is our home for the next 2 nights. The temps are supposed to be in the high 80's so we are glad to be in the shade. The sites here are pretty tight. We happen to have an extra wide site because of the path next to us leading to another parking area.
This narrow path is our access to the lake. You can see how close the rv sites are to the public path.
This is our little section of beach/lake access on this huge lake. You will see a picture of the whole lake later.
In town we parked near a small city park that had this unique fountain.
This bridge had a sign posted saying "no jumping from the bridge". We saw lots of people jumping. Here just one example.
Dusty took this sunset picture on our first night. There were not any clouds, so I was trying to get the sun reflecting on the water just before it went behind the mountain. Best picture I got. Notice there are still lots of people in the water. The temperature is still in the 80's.
The next morning we drove up to a mountain viewpoint.
This is a little over half of Osoyoos Lake. There is a bridge that goes across the middle and more of the town of Osoyoos on the other side. We are parked on the upper part of the lake on what would be the lower part in this picture. Below is the other half of Osoyoos Lake. See how huge it is?
This area of BC is wine country. Here are just a very small vineyard we saw from the overlook.
We drove up a little further and found this 2nd overlook point. Below is one of the many hairpin turns we drove on the way up the mountain.
We are now looking at an apple orchard. We have never seen apple trees kept so thin and close together as these. Look how loaded with apples each tree is.
Just for fun we wanted to show this stop sign in both english and the native First Nations language.
Our next adventure was to the NK'Mip Desert Cultural Center.
We learned that this area is actually the top most portion of the Sonora Desert. Interesting! It is desert like here.
Large groups of these berries were in the trees around the cultural center. Not sure what they are. The people working inside were not the usual crew (today is Sunday) so they didn't know.
There was a lot of concrete and metal art demonstrating the native culture in the outdoor displays.
There was an osprey nest just behind the cultural center. Tic got these great pictures of the osprey.
Inside there was a presentation on the 7 native snakes in this area.
This is a gopher snake. The other 6 snakes local here are the northern pacific rattlesnake, night snake, rubber boa snake, western yellow-bellied racer, common garter snake, and the terrestrial garter snake. Below was their rattlesnake.
The snake presentation was over about 12:30pm so we decided to have lunch at the NK'Mip Cellar Restaurant.
There were a limited number of tables sitting outside on the hillside overlooking part of the vineyards and the Osoyoos Lake. In the shade it was comfortable. We had a delicious and relaxing lunch.
We headed back to the cultural center for a presentation on some native dances and songs. Two young inexperienced people sang the Nk'Mip "National Anthem" to which we all stood.
The young man did the Grass dance. And the young lady did a more modern dance.
While we were sitting outside late this afternoon we saw some gamble quail and 5 baby chicks running around.
It has been a wonderfully pleasant stay here.
Tomorrow we cross back into the lower 48. What an awesome adventure we have had!
Friday, August 25, 2017
Today we are going to work in some sight seeing while getting some chores done.
One of our backyard neighbors. Isn't she pretty!
Our first excursion was to Planet Bee Honey Farm and Meadery. They have 21 different flavors of honey available to taste. They also had several meads available to taste, all free. I tried several kinds of honey and Tic tried 2 kinds of meads. Mead (honey wine) is an alcoholic beverage created by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with various fruits, spices, grains, or hops. The alcoholic content ranges from about 8% ABV to more than 20%. The ones Tic tried were 12.5% alcoholic.
This is the winery corner of the store.
This was the beehive they have inside the store for educational purposes. The store owner was also a bee keeper. She pointed out the queen bee and a female pollen collector bee and how she communicates with the other collectors. It was all very interesting.
Next we headed out to see BX Falls.
It was a short hike, but a whole group of people were just behind us. So you get to see some of them. It's been so dry here we were skeptical about whether there would even be a waterfall. We were pleasantly surprised.
Next we headed to Allen Brooks Nature Center. The nature center was preparing for a "garage sale" as a funding activity. All items were donated. So we only walked around the outside of the facility.
There is a wonderful view point at Allen Brooks. This view is of the Okanangan Lake.
The city of Vernon is really spread out. It is amazing to see so many houses on the hillsides.
We are looking at Swan Lake now. We are camped on the south end of Swan Lake.
Above shows both a housing area and a farming area. Below is a closeup of the farm fields in the picture above.
There's a lot of cattle ranches around also. What beautiful settings.
After we left the nature center, we continued on down the road. We came across this pond with beautiful reflections.
We found an area called Predator Ridge which is a golf course community. It was beautiful!
This log cabin was our near the golf course. You can see tables and umbrellas. It must be a place to get food.
This golf course is set in one of the most beautiful settings I've seen.
On our way home, we stopped at Kekuli Bay Provincial Park. Kekuli Bay is on Kalamalka Lake. Kalamalka Lake is nearly 27 miles long. Below is a look at the city across the lake from this park.
By the time we got home it was time to fix dinner. It was such a beautiful evening, we sat outside waiting for the sun to set hoping for photo ops.
We watched this duck doing duck yoga! Fun to watch!
There are no clouds this evening, so the sunset is not very dramatic. Still a wonderful way to end a beautiful day!
