Saturday/Sunday in the Okanagan

Saturday was our fruitless quest to find postcards in Vernon and area, and Sunday we drove back to Vancouver.  There's your TL:DR.  😜

 OK, fine, sorry.  Let's start off with the morning walk - sans Van, of course! - on a lovely Saturday, sunnier than the day before.  We walked through a different part of the resort area

and eventually found ourselves on a residential street looking across at two deer calmly grazing, paying us no mind. 

We saw a lot of deer in the Okanagan, perhaps as many as 15 over a few days.  No other wildlife, however, save for birds.

When everyone was up and at 'em, we set out on the day.  Yes, we did drive into Vernon to browse shops along one of the main streets, and we found postcards only in a coffee shop.  As nice as they were, they were also over $4 each, and artistic more than capturing photographic views.  I liked them, and I almost bought a few, but ultimately, we passed on them, finished our wandering and headed to lunch.  The jaunt into Vernon, however, did bring us past a view point for Kalamalka Lake, and on such a sunny day, the waters were especially beautiful.  So then, I present you with a photodump of the group of us admiring the lake and capturing its beauty.  And our own!

For lunch we headed back down to Lake Country.  The woman who served us the tastings at Monte Creek had recommended the restaurant at Gray Monk,

and so we took her up on her recommendation.  I'd had the wines before, but I'd not been to the winery.  Its setting on Okanagan Lake was handsome,

and we had a slightly late but tasty lunch.  A bottle of their Pinot Gris for us to share,

and a chilled cucumber soup

and some truffle fries for my own lunch. 

That was enjoyable.  All of us had a good meal,

and then it was on the road north to go back to 50th Parallel where we had reservations for tastings.  We had enough time to stop at a little regional park

and dip a hand in the lake waters (pleasant in the shallows, for sure)

and see a couple more deer.

I had honestly never heard of 50th Parallel before making the dinner booking for the night before.  I had no idea about their wines.  And, to be frank, the Pinot noir we'd had the night before struck me as thin and too tart and light to stand up to the steak.  The others, however, enjoyed it.   I did like the tasting room

and experience, though, and I came away with a few souvenir books.  Four of us tasted, Conrad was our driver. 

We came away with a few bottles, including the Pinot for Conrad.  I was disappointed to learn that, because of an early thaw followed by some further winter, they lost most of the 2024 harvest and had to use grapes brought up from the US.  Sorry, I know they're a business and need to survive, but when I taste BC wines, I want them to be made from BC grapes.  Ah well.

Dinner that night was at The Range, the restaurant/bar at Predator Ridge.  The food was food - my burger was fine, not noteworthy.  The setting outside was loud - I wished we had sat inside, especially as the gold bros on the patio got drunker and louder.  But the meal was nice for the opportunity to catch up with an old friend, Aaron. 

I hadn't seen him since his Dad's 80th birthday celebration last August, and that was the first time since our 30th high school reunion back in 2018.  So, it's been a while.  He permanently relocated to Lake Country after his partner, Lorna, died last year.  I was glad to see him, get some time with him alone at the bar before dinner, and have his company again.

And that, friends, was Saturday. 

Sunday really was the drive back to Vancouver.  Oh, there was morning walking on other lovely day. 

We stopped at Starbucks in Kelowna and then at Valley Graze Box in Merritt (good egg salad sandwich, but no, I did not try the dill pickle lemonade!). 

Another gas station stop in Abbotsford, and then we were at our hotel in Vancouver in time for dinner.

Vancouver, however, will wait for other blog entries.... 

silver anniversary

25 years!  No, not of me and Conrad (we're coming up on 25 years since we met in the new year, though).  I completely forgot that last Friday marked 25 years since I moved the the US.

On August 1, 2000, I flew from Montreal to Chicago - I think I may have had a connection in Detroit or Toronto, I can't recall.  I made my way from O'Hare to the Boystown neighbourhood where my friend (and former Montreal swim teammate) Medgar was living.  He was at his job out in the suburbs, but it was a lovely day, so I sat with the bags I had on the lawn of his courtyard building (by coincidence, across the street from Yoshi's which came to be so important in my Chicago life), waiting for him to come home.  I was going to stay with him for a handful of days until I could move into the apartment I had signed a lease for, a couple of blocks away.  I was not due to start my job until August 8, and that would give me time to settle in, get to know Medgar's friends on the Smelts, and build my social network right away.

So I sat on that lush green lawn on a Chicago summer afternoon, and I wrote an 8-page letter to my Mum.  It had hit me hard how very huge it must have been for her to leave the UK in the early-mid 60s and emigrate to Canada.  Leaving a country and all of your relatives behind - yes, I know the US is just across the border, but it was a whole other world where I had to establish myself in so many ways.  And I couldn't even fathom what lay ahead in terms of work and setting up my life - all the banking and finding dentists and doctors and getting a new driver's license and more.  I could only think what a huge step it was and how very very far I felt from all my family in British Columbia, even farther than when I lived in Montreal.

Medgar came home, I think we might have gone to the pool, I think we might have had sushi.  I stayed a few days with him before he foisted me off on a teammate who was going out of town and welcomed a house sitter for the rest of my time until I could move into my apartment.  I lived a very modest life, making more money than I ever had before (my starting salary was $31,500) and yet having much higher expenses because of loans and the move and rent and such.  Work was interesting.  I soon met Courtney, who has remained a very dear friend.  I had an immediate group of great friends through Medgar and the Smelts.  I figured I'd be in Chicago, in the US, for about two years, then take my work experience back to Canada and have a nice little life and career in a small town somewhere.

And then I met Conrad in the January after I moved to Chicago.  And everything changed.

Every time I go back to Canada, I return to the US feeling something akin to grief for a few days.  Like there is so much that I have missed by being out of my country for 25 years, and so much more that I will miss.  I ache sometimes to go back.  Maybe one day.  Having Van in our lives complicates consideration of immigration, and so my future more likely lies here in the US (though I would not be unhappy with a cooler part of the US!).  So be it.  I have Conrad and Van and friends and professional colleagues and a home and a career here, and it is good.

So, happy anniversary to me, belatedly.  Not yet half my life in the US, but I feel certain that one day I will reach that mark and surpass it.

(That photo, by the way?  From my birthday in 2001, not a photo from 2000.  Me and Medgar.  I don't have any photos older than that digitized and on this laptop.) 

Thursday/Friday in the Okanagan

Two posts in one day?  An abundance of reflections and photos, indeed!

It wasn't too far before dinner when we got to our hotel on the Thursday.  Once settled into our rooms at Predator Ridge, we got ready for dinner

and headed up the hill to what I have to assume is a sister resort property:  Sparkling Hill Resort and Spa. 

No, no spa for us.  Alas.  That is so often welcome.  No, we were headed there to dinner at PeakFine.

PeakFine was, well, fine.  For a resort that wasn't inexpensive (I had explored that as an option for staying), it really banks on the view more than anything.  The service was alright - pleasant but young and not polished.  The drinks were fine.  The food was fine - my zucchini starter was more of a green salad than I had thought it would be,

but the burger was delicious (and sorry to Van and the others - burgers in Canada are well done, that's that). 

I thought the decor could have been a little less generic.  But the views over Okanagan Lake were wonderful,

and we did have a good time.  We grabbed shots of the surroundings before

and after dinner

as well as a few of the hotel itself

- I know that Conrad was really into some of what he saw.  It was a nice evening, though, truly. 

Once we came back down the hill, Robert, Conrad, and I headed to The Range and sat at a corner of the bar for a nightcap.  And then, finally, it was to bed.

Our plan for Friday?  Next to nothing.  I mean it.  We're past the age where we have to do do do and go go go while on vacation.  So my morning consisted of a walk

by myself,

then another when Robert joined me. 

I snapped some shots of the resort

and of the flora

(Saskatoon berries!!)

and enjoyed a moderate little bit of exercise before and after my morning decaf lattes.

Eventually everyone was up and at 'em, and I think I may have then napped, but the day was underway.  So we had Robert and Courtney come to our room where our balcony was more spacious, and among the five of us, we spent a few enjoyable hours from about 11ish onward drinking

the wines we had picked up from Monte Creek the day before,

enjoying what sort of "charcuterie" we could cobble together from the little resort store,

plus some local white chocolate. 

By mid-afternoon, it was naptime again.  We really made the most of the cloudiest day on the trip!

Dinner was a short drive away, down the hill to Lake Country for dinner at Block One, the restaurant at 50th Parallel Estate Winery. 

It was easily the best meal of our time in the Okanagan:  good cocktails, an interesting menu, good service, a cool setting, lovely views, tasty food.  I'd happily recommend it, and it was interesting that, by coincidence, one of Robert's colleagues back in Colorado had done so!

We took vineyard photos before heading to our table. 

A black Manhattan for me, their version,

and some bread

and olives

and a tomato/plum/burrata salad for us all to start with. 

Since the restaurant recommended family style, we took it to the extreme, ordering the ribeye on the bone for the five of us to share. 

It took a little while to come out, but it was a great choice - and a good value!  We may not have needed the carrot dish on the side, but it was far from unwelcome. 

I didn't get a clear shot of dessert, alas.  The dinner was wonderful, and the drive home on a dark country road with deer making appearances was only moderately harrowing.

That brought Friday to a close.  No nightcaps for anyone, that was it.  To bed, and a last full day in the Okanagan to come.