The Okanagan Valley

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Geo: 49.5002, -119.594

Today we left Yakima about 9am and started driving north along Highway 97. The scenery consisted of lakes and mountains and we saw a fire with a helicopter scooping water from the lake to dump on the smouldering brush. It was a fairly uneventual drive, we listened to CDs of Kerry Greenwood novels and Yes Minister radio plays. We stopped for a very ordinary lunch in Okanogan in Washington but then arrived at the Canadian border about 2-30pm.
Once through there we were in the Okanagan valley,(yes the variation in spelling is right) and we had the prospect of myriad wineries within a few kilometres. We stopped first at the Burrowing Owl winery. There, a very nice guy called Larry, took us through a tasting of 4 wines and then he recommended some other wineries to stop at. We drove on to Jackson-Triggs which is one of the biggest wineries in this area. They have won prizes in London and Paris for their wines.We tasted several of their wines but the best was a Meritage which is a blend of varietal reds and very tasty though not as big as our reds. Our final stop was at a winery called the Wild Goose. Here we had a very good Pinot Gris. We bought one to drink along the way.
We drove into Penticton which is situated between two lakes. The town itself is a little disappointing, without much character. However, we found a reasonable motel and had a quick meal at a Pizza Hut.
We look forward to more winery visits tomorrow.
The photos here are from previous entries. I have just worked out how to upload the photos. from now on my entries will be accompanied by up to date photos.

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Photos

Beach at Trinidad
This is the beach at Trinidad

Cannery Row
This is all that is left of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. It is now all shops and eateries.

Drive through tree
We stopped here to look at the tree typical of the huge Redwoods.

John Steinbeck and me
this is a statue fo John Steinbeck on Cannery row at Monterey.

under the golden gate
Fletcher and I under the Golden Gate bridge on our hour long cruise on San Francisco harbour

Comments

[lkidner]

Hey. Where is this? I'm from Penticton and I've never seen it. Awesome!