Midge's Blog

Kootenays road trip

We headed out of Vernon the next day, and went on the Needles Ferry, which was this cool little free cable ferry connecting the highway to Nakusp.

We stopped for lunch at the Visitor Info in Nakusp and then went on to Kaslo.

I can't remember exactly where this cool little waterfall was, but I'm pretty sure it was on the little highway from Nakusp to Kaslo--it was super hot out, and this waterfall was like a natural air-conditioner, we stood on the bridge and cooled off. There were also these cool little red flowers that I've seen before, but don't know what they are, do you?

Kaslo was small but cool and had this hotdog/sourdough bread stand where I bought some awesome bread and buns that I think actually had yeast in them cause they were so fluffy, but were so good I still had to eat a bit!

We continued on to Ainsworth hot springs where we decided to stay for the night. There's nothing to do there except go to the hot springs (or the little cafe across the street where they have yummy gelato), but the hot springs were great so it was all good!

The main pool is a little cooler, so you can sit in it forever and not get too hot or too cold.

Then there is the smaller hot pool, from which you can go into the caves, which it a tunnel that goes in a loop into the natural hot caves. I tried to go in, but it was way to hot for me and my asthma, so I mostly stayed in the big pool. But Scott went in the caves a few times...never got hot enough to brave the cold pool, which is freezing to cool you off.

Check the amazing view from the hot springs:

The next day, we kept going towards Nelson, but stopped for a while at the Kokanee Creek provincial park.

Some other cool photos from there, including a sandpiper, who had little newborn chicks with it (couldn't get a shot of the babies...sorry!)

Next, we headed into Nelson on their great old bridge:

We stayed two nights in Nelson, at the Dancing Bear Inn/Hostel which was a great place, except we were unfortunate to come when there was crazy construction going on down the block--the second night, they were bulldozing and paving (which was REALLY loud) ALL NIGHT. Other than that Nelson was a wicked town to visit. Scott went mountain biking (a little too much of a challenge for me), and I spent extravagant amounts of money on wool from Maplerose, this great little shop run by this great Swiss guy. There were several interesting people staying at the hostel, we ended up chatting a lot with this couple from Switzerland, a guy from Alberta and a girl from South America (can't remember where), and this older guy from Florida, who was a total beatnik, and had come to BC to rent a house for the summer and write. Nelson had great scenery and excellent food, with lots of neat little restaurants with patios. Here's Scott waiting for takeout at the Outer Clove, a garlic themed restaurant:

A shot of the main street in Nelson:

After our time in Nelson, which would have been much too short had it not been for the sleep deprivation, we weren't really sure where we were going to stay. We spent the day driving west, first through Castlegar, then stopping for lunch at Kettle Valley:

This area is really popular for biking, and there are cool bridges all over, though some of the big train tressle bridges were burnt in the fires two summers ago, and are being rebuilt. Here is the bridge we were by when some bikers passed by:

And a close up of the bridge structure that looked really cool cause it's all peeling:

We made a couple quick stops in Osoyoos, here is Scott and I above the town:

By this time it was getting stormy, so we decided to go stay in Penticton for the night and visit with Scott's grandparents--of course we stopped at our favorite fruit stand in Keremeos on the way. Good thing we went to Penticton cause there was thunder and lightning! The next day, we also got to see more of Scott's relatives than expected up at his aunt and uncle's place, cause one of their kids was there with his wife and kids, so it was a big party!

We cut our trip a day short cause of bad weather and Scott was starting to get a cold, which was fine, all in all it was a really good trip, and nice to finally get out to that end of the province!

catching up... (Graham's wedding)

Wow, I have so many pictures to post, and haven't gotten around to posting. These basically cover a couple months, so I'm gonna separate them into a few posts. First, lets all take a moment to commemorate the passing of the "son of a gun"...you've served us well.

Now, onto Graham and Itsuki's wedding and Scott and my trip to the Kootenays...

We drove into Vernon on Friday night, and got in late. Saturday, we stopped at the Gray Monk winery for a tour before heading to join the rest of the wedding crew for some mini-golf at Scandia.

The vineyard:

The wine tourers:

A cool old-school firetruck at the fire station up by the winery:

Then onto Lake Okanagan Resort, where the wedding was--we had to wait a half hour to pass through the construction--you could only get through once an hour cause they were blasting off the cliff to widen the highway or something. But look at the amazing view from our room--almost made up for being on the top floor with no elevator!

Ok, next day, here's the wedding party off in the distance, a cool photo--note the marmots in the foreground--there were marmots all over the place.

Here's Graham waiting for his lovely lady--Tall Scott was the best man, as you can see!

And here she is, accompanied by her dad--btw. Itsuki's parents are wicked swing-dancers, you should've seen them bust out on the dance floor!

It's official! (Hope they don't mind me posting this one!)

And there they go...

Shortly after this, I got really, really sick...I attribute it to the warm tuna salad sandwich I ate when we got into Vernon on Friday night, but who knows--my stomach's a freak. I missed everything between the group photos right after the ceremony and the post-dinner speeches, but made it down just in time for Tall Scott's best man speech and a little grooving. Then, next thing you know, it's around 10pm and the construction people blow the cliff down on the road--read: everyone has to leave early cause they have to drive back to Kelowna through Vernon, which takes a couple hours instead of 20mins. Put a damper on the party, but a bunch of us were staying at the resort, so we had a little smaller party than expected! Luckily, they had cleared the road in the morning, so we all made it to the gift opening at Graham's place...only to find that our gift had gotten left behind at the resort! No worries, got a letter from Graham today saying that the managed to retrieve it and all is well!

We ended up going back to Vernon for the night to give me a little time to recover from my stomach nastiness, which was nice cause the weather was sweet, and Scott's pool was cool!

See next entry for the rest of the trip... the Kootenays!

a milestone.

despite it being a really sucky week, i think i just officially completed the first draft of my thesis. 105 pages (not including all the stuff that goes before and after the chapters). wow. it feels so weird...yay me!?

grumpsters.

between my thesis and the weather, i am possibly the grumpiest girl in the world at this moment.

bah.