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1 to 15 October 2016 16 to 31 October 2016

Saturday October 1, 2016

I am out for a walk this morning.
A few photos of the campground.

The Osoyoos Lake from the beach. The town of Osoyoos is on the other side of the lake.

The first place we go to is the information center. The lady working there is very good. She explained to us that at this time of year, many of the attractions are either closed or have limited opening hours. She still gave us a lot of information on things to do and see.

A very nice native statue.
Can you see the wolf in the horse?

Another one, but indoor this time. Can you see the wolf and eagle?

We left the information center with our hands full of information.

We stopped at the only two groceries stores in town.

I will talk about the Osoyoos Indian Band and the NK'MIP word.
The Osoyoos Indian Band is a very successful band. Thanks to Clarence Louie. He had and still has a vision for the band to be thriving. Read this story, it is very interesting.
What does NK'MIP (pronounce in-ka-meep) means?
Simply, "bottomland".
One of the many enterprises of the Osoyoos Indian Band.

Another very beautiful statue. Again, can you see the wolf and eagle?

There they are!

We have to drive between row of grape for wine.

The pool is open and it is heated. We spent 10 minutes in the hot tub.

So far, we like our campground and the town of Osoyoos.

Sunday October 2, 2016

It is a nice day.
I left before Michele had a chance to take the photo!

I am back! It is a nice day.

We took a little walk in the campground and we saw this cactus with what looks like radish!

We also saw this bush with what looks like blueberries, but they are not blueberries...

A cactus and yes, it is prickly!

On our way to the beach...

We are happy to finally be in Osoyoos for a month.

Monday October 3, 2016

No photos today!
We just had an uneventful day.
We keep settling in.

Tuesday October 4, 2016

We are on our way to Oliver, 20 km north of Osoyoos.
The area is wine country. A total of 39 wineries between Oliver and Osoyoos.

The first cache we are looking for is called "The Monster!".
No! Not me.

This one!
We found the cache no problems.

Another cache is near this bridge.

We walk on the bridge and had a look at the water. What is that?
Salmons going up the river. We watched them for about 10 minutes.
Many times, when we are looking for caches, we end up in places like this. We probably would not have come near this place if it was not for caching.

A cache is located near this winery with a castle as a tasting room.

What a weird tree!

While looking for another cache near a winery, we decided to stop and have a taste.

We came out with a bottle!

Oliver, the Wine Capital of Canada!

Our first stop is at the information center.

We toured the town for a while after the visit at the information center.
We found a thrift store and Michele had to visit it!

On our way back home, we stopped at the local apple cider distillery.

We come out of there with four, beer size, bottles of apple cider.

We had a good harvests with 4 caches.

Wednesday October 5, 2016

Today, we are going to Mount Kobau.
We will be looking for caches too.
We are on Hwy #3 west and up!

About halfway up the pass, we pulled over at a lookout. A nice view of Lac Osoyoos and the valley. On the other side is the Old Baldy mountain.

Imagine the view from the top of the hill.

Another view of the valley.

One cache is near the "Spotted Lake". It is a very important place for the local First Nation.
They are looking for funds to built an interpretive center. This way they can share this place with other people.

The lake has a high mineral content, this is what gives it the "crystal" look. There are 365 circles on the lake.

We leave the paved road behind and head up to Mount Kobau on a gravel road.
We saw a lot of cattles on the way up.

A short stop to look for a cache and admire the view.
Notice Spotted Lake on my left.

And the cache is there!

This photo gives you an idea of the angle of the road going up.

We stopped at the end of the road and started our hike up to the summit.
There is a cache on the summit!

The temperature in Osoyoos is +18°C, but here, it is a balmy +8°C, brrrr!
Michele is looking for the cache.

We are at the summit at an altitude of 1,873 meters, or 6,143 feet.

What a view!

On our way back to the car, we saw 4 deers.

This is just to give you an idea of the road going up to Mount Kobau.

We really enjoyed going to Mount Kobau.

We found another 5 caches today.

Thursday October 6, 2016

Not much going on today.
We went for a short trip to town and did some reading.

A light rain started in the evening.

Friday October 7, 2016

If I go somewhere in the morning and Michele is still sleeping, I leave her a note.
This one says (it sounds better in French) "I am gone for a walk or a bike ride, but not for a car or a boat ride".

Today I went for a walk and met Bill and Lorraine. We have friends who told us about these two and said they were really nice people.
We talked for about 2 hours. They are really nice people!

Saturday October 8, 2016

It looks like it will rain.
Why not check out the Flea Market in Oliver!
This is a place where the sellers are the same every week. It is still OK.

One of the reason we are here in Oliver it to have lunch at the local Chinese restaurant. Well! They open at 4 pm!
So we have lunch at Subway...

Guess what? We also looked for caches.
On our way to a cache by the river.

The Okanagan River with more salmons going up river.

Here is another initiative from the Okanagan Indian Band. It is working very well.

There is a traditional distillery North of Oliver.
We are at the Dubh Glas Distillery.
The distillery opened its door in 2005 and if I remember right, two weeks later they entered a province wide competition for traditional Gin. Surprised, they won first place. The Gin is called "Noteworthy" and it is gear towards none Gin drinkers.

I bought a bottle!

Next stop, Jackson-Triggs, but not for a wine taste, but to look for a cache!

Another cache is located at the golf course's club house. The golf course belongs to the Okanagan Indian Band and it is very nice.
We looked for the cache, but we could not find it!

We wanted to take a photo with the timer, but we had a little problem and here are the results.

This is the second try.

I do not remember why I made this face!

Here is what the lower part of the campground looked like a few days ago...

This is Thanksgiving weekend and here is the lower campground.

We had a good day and we found 8 caches.

Sunday October 8, 2016

It is sunny, but the wind has a bite to it.
What should we do today?
We are going to look for the caches in Osoyoos.
The first two caches were very well made.

This cache is about 10 meters from the border with the US.

Some of the caches are on the sides of the valley.

I think I talked about it before, but here it is. Osoyoos is in a semi-arid region of the Okanagan Valley.
With arid comes cacti. Here are a few, they look like little balls with needles. As soon as you touch them they stick to you and they are sharp. Two of them on my shoe.

Another view of the valley, the lake and the town of Osoyoos.

Pretty Michele.

One of the large billboard showing you what to see and do in the area.
The cache is locked in some kind of electrical box. The electric box is not used for electricity.

We had a nice afternoon looking for caches. We found 13 of them.
We have found 2,127 caches since we started.

Monday October 10, 2016

Thanksgiving Monday and all the weekend campers are gone.
The wind is still blowing and it is a cold wind.
We are out for a walk around the campground.

There are many quails in the campground and they are so funny to see walking/running so fast.

Just another quiet day at home.

Tuesday October 11, 2016

I did not have a good night of sleep!
All night, I heard helicopters flying around us.
When I woke up I saw frost on the car! Brrrrr!

The temperature dropped down to +1°C last night.
Now I understand where the helicopter noise came from. It comes from the big fans located in the middle of a vineyard. When the temperature drops near or below 0°C, the fans come on and by agitation the vines and orchards, it prevents frost from taking place. I will have photos of those big fans soon.

The sun is shinning and it is +14°C.
Why not wash the MH and the car!

It was not all that warm to wash the MH and car.
We decided to warm up in the pool and hot-tub.

A good day overall.

Wednesday October 12, 2016

The temperature dropped down again last night. This time below zero. The big fans were on all night again.
I slept well because I knew where the noise was coming from this time.

Did you notice the temperature inside the MH? We do not have any heat at night, we like to sleep when it is cool, maybe even cold!

Our neighbors feed the local docks. It is funny to watch the ducks go from place to place and get feed.

I went out for a bike ride in the neighborhood next to the campground.
I finally got some photos of the big fans used to prevent frost on the vines and orchards.

A small lagoon surrounded by nice condos.

Thursday October 13, 2016

On October 3rd, our old Shaw Direct receiver died.
After talking to Shaw Direct about it, they sent me a new one.

It has arrived this morning, yeah!

After about an hour on the phone with Shaw Direct, they came to the conclusion that this new receiver is defective!!!
They are sending me another one and I should get it within 10 days. It is a good thing the campground has cable that way we can still watch our favorite TV shows, even the one on French channels.
We did some laundry in the afternoon.

On the weather side, we are having rain until Sunday. A few storms are coming one after the other to B-C. We are far enough from the coast to get just a little wind and rain. We had a +10°C today.

Friday October 14, 2016

I finally decided to fix the kitchen table. We could have it done the last time we were in for Warranty work, but we know it would have been fixed just for a little while.
So, the table can slide left and right to allow the leaf at both ends come up and make the table bigger. The problem is the way the base is attached to the table. It becomes loose in no time. Time to make it stronger. The downside is that we will only be able to use one leaf to make the table bigger. The arrows are showing the movement, up and down, of the table top.

On the left is the mechanism to slide the table left or right. On the right, you can see I started to install the 90° metal brackets to support and solidify the table top.

Michele watched me for a short while and then went back to the bed and continued reading. I guess the book was more interesting than me working?

The work is done and the metal brackets are doing the job.

We are very happy with the results.

Saturday October 15, 2016

No photo, the weather is not nice, we stayed at home all day!

Until next time.

Life is good...