End Of Summer Visit to Kelowna

The Pedersen clan made a late summer visit to Kelowna BC, a destination we usually visit once or twice a year. Brother Alan and his wife Nancy make the trek to Kelowna twice yearly to visit their son Christopher who lives in Kelowna. For Annette and myself, and brother Ken and his wife Linda, it is a good reason to make it a family road trip where we all get to visit and play in another town, as well as enjoy a visit with Christopher.

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Click here to see all the pictures from the weekend. There are many to see and they help to do justice to the Kelowna scenery; so much so you will add it to your next vacation ideas !  😀

Annette and I made the trip late on the Friday afternoon after visiting Samantha and the kids on the way out of town. By the time we made the four hour drive to Kelowna, we had just enough time to check into the hotel and then meet the group for dinner.

Christopher is our resident tour guide in Kelowna and he picked a brewery with outside seating as our dinner spot. Beers and pizza were the main items on the menu and those went over well with the group.

With thirsts quenched and bellies full, and our catch up conversations done, we adjourned for the night making plans to meet at a local favourite breakfast location in the morning. 

We met in the morning, ate too much for breakfast, which seems to be the norm these days, then headed over to a local farmers market a few blocks away. As outdoor markets go, this was a fairly large one with a good mix of craft artisans and farmers themselves selling their harvest. Both Annette and I were wanting to buy some farm goods but we were still to be on the road for a couple of days, so the food would spoil before we returned home.

After the market, we headed to one of the weekend's highlights, that being walking part of the Kettle Valley Railway. Then railway itself is long defunct but dedicated and passionate local activists worked hard to save the rail right away for recreational use for hikers, bicyclists and horse riders. The gem of the trail is a 12 mile section which includes 18 trestles as the railway snakes through Myra Canyon. While we were not going to attempt all 12 miles, if you access the park from the Myra Canyon end point, you reach trestle #18 in a kilometer, and then within the next kilometer are another five trestles.

That we could accomplish as a nice walk for most of us, for a couple of us (including myself) that was a stretch but we did it anyways. The roundtrip amounts to 4 kilometers, for those considering the trip.

After the walk we rewarded ourselves with a visit to a local cidery. Annette had enjoyed a cider at a Fraser Valley brewery during the summer when we stopped for lunch. Annette discovered the cidery itself was in Kelowna, just 15 minutes away from Myra Canyon Park.

The Soma Craft Cidery is a small batch cidery, meaning they make small batches of cider throughout the year but the cider flavours change dependent on the season. Unfortunately they did not have any stock of Annette's chosen cider, but we did have a sampling of their current four batches of cider. After the tasting, Annette and Linda both opted to buy the blueberry cider; it was pricey but apparently yummy, so I'm told.

After the cidery, an early dinner was in order, so we voted to visit a local Chinese food restaurant which some of the gang had previously visited. This provided a chance for more catch up conversations and the expected retelling of old, embarrassing family stories involving those present and not present.

  

After dinner, Chris suggested going to a viewpoint at Dilworth Mountain Park, which offers a terrific view of Kelowna from the east, and just happens to be the perfect location to watch the sun set in the west. It was an excellent suggestion as it made for a memorable ending to the day. We had enjoyed sunny skies through the day, which kept the temperature relatively warm, but Fall was on it's way and we needed our warm clothes to keep us toasty as we enjoyed the red sky caused by the setting sun.

Next morning, another highlight fieldtrip was on the books - a ride aboard the Kettle Valley Steam Train which runs for 10 kilometers along a restored section of the Kettle Valley railway bed. The trip starts on the western outskirts of Summerland, in Prairie Valley. The trip takes you around the local mountains and ends south of Summerland at the Trout Creek Trestle, another spectacular hand built train trestle restored by the local volunteers.

It was such a wonderful trip, the train moved slowly allowing the tourists the full experience of the train ride itself, as well as being able to take in the grandeur of the scenery. The conductor had a running monologue about the local history and geography of the area, plus he also informed us that the engine which was pulling the train was the same engine which had been pulling the train when Billy Miner robbed the train near Mission, B.C. in 1904. That was Canada's first train robbery!

After the train ride we split up and went our own ways. Ken and Linda were headed to Penticton to hit a local outdoor flea market, while Alan and Nancy were returning Chris to Kelowna, and Annette and I were heading down to Penticton to visit Annette's mother.

We all arrived back in the Vancouver area late in the day, seemingly to all arrive home in the 7.30 - 8.00 PM time frame.

Annette and I were quite happy with our Kelowna visit; we got to visit with family, got to see Christopher which we only do so now once or twice a year, and we had several new tourist experiences which were quite enjoyable.

Come October 1 you need to have your snow tires on in BC to travel the mountain passes; we headed back down to the Coast on September 29th. As we reached Pennask Summit on the Coquihalla Connector between Kelowna and Merritt, a rain shower had just passed through and the 3 degrees Celsius temperature at the summit turned the passing rain shower into snow as the clouds surmounted the mountains and reminded us that winter comes early in the BC mountains.