Kelowna, BC: a visit and some family time

A niece’s wedding was a good excuse to spend some time in Kelowna this August. We booked about a year ahead to get a site in a boutique RV park in South Kelowna. Canyon Farms RV has ten fully serviced sites. Our site was closest to the washroom and laundry, but still very private with the landscaping and plantings.

Canyon Farms is also a working farm, with chickens and gardens. They provided us with a container to collect our vegetable scraps for the chickens. The chickens were very keen to see what delectables were coming to them next and would run to the fence if they heard someone approach.

There were plenty of flower gardens. This one was right in the campground. During our stay, a vase with cut flowers appeared on our picnic table.

There were also grape vines full of a tasty eating varietal planted to give privacy between sites.

The RV park was walking distance to Mission Creek Greenway Regional Park. Twice we walked down into the canyon and once we rode our bikes. This is a photo of Doug in front of the canyon walls at Gallagher’s narrows, on a side trail to the “Rock Ovens.”

We also took a trip to Vernon to visit family. We wish we had remembered to take a photo from their deck that overlooks the city, oh well. On our way back to Kelowna, we stopped in at The Batik Corner in Oyama. The cute shop sits on the owner’s rural property.

The shop specialized in batiks that are made especially for her, which meant there were some unique designs and very reasonable prices. The shop is a bit out of the way, but we bought enough fabric to make it worth the trip.

The day before the wedding, we met the mother and father of the bride at Summerhill Pyramid Winery, the wedding venue. Here’s a photo of the rehearsal in progress, so you can see how great the view is.

Another bonus of the wedding was spending time with our daughters and their partners, including the eldest daughter’s in-laws. We hosted them for a lunch before the afternoon wedding.

The next day, four of us rode the Myra Canyon Trestles trail, a highly scenic section of the Kettle Valley Railway, that was originally completed in 1914. We started fairly early on a cool morning, so it wasn’t very crowded on our way out. Here’s a view of one of the 18 trestle bridges. Decks had been added to the trestle bridges back in the 1990s, but major restoration has occurred more recently since twelve of them were burnt in the 2003 forest fires.

There are two tunnels on the route. They are dark, but there is enough light from the entrances to be able to see without lights.

We rode 12 kilometres to another parking area for the trail, then headed back. Here’s a view of one of the longer, curved trestle on our way back. As we got closer to our truck, it became crowded on the trail, with families of hikers, dogs and more cyclists.

As we got closer to our truck, the trail became more crowded with families of hikers, dogs and more cyclists. We all enjoyed the leisurely three hour trip.

This was our last trip of the summer; now our focus will be to get ready for our fall adventures: Arizona, here we come!