Home to Osoyoos

I haven’t made a real post on my blog for almost a week now – vacation has been busier than work and everyday life.

However, now I’m going to start posting some of the pix that Teresa and I took on our trip. This section is from home to Osoyoos, BC.

We drove to Osoyoos in about 4 hours, plus another hour for brunch in Princeton, at a restaurant named after Billy Miner, an itinerant train robber who lived (and ‘worked’) in BC sometime in the 1800’s.

But I didn’t take a shot until we were almost in Osoyoos – and in fact took these pictures the day after we arrived, when we came back to check out an interesting lake just west of the city.

I called it Brimstone Lake (there was no name posted), but Gabrielle called it Pebble Lake. Her name is more descriptive in this photo:

But mine is more descriptive of the lake close-up. The lake appears to be all mineral salts, and perhaps tar sands. When you step on it (see bottom of the picture) the surface layers are removed and a black, tarish substance oozes up:

Near that lake, where we stopped in a pull-out to view Okanagan Lake, I snapped this pic:

Without the lake, this area would be dead, dead, dead.

When we first pulled in, we were too early to check into the hotel, so we went to one of Osoyoos’ public beaches. Very nice!

The next day we saw Dave and Grace Feitsma at the Osoyoos Baptist Church, and they invited us for lunch at their cabin in Oroville, just across the border in the US. Grace is a cousin of mine (the youngest daughter of my uncle Cor), and Dave is an old hockey buddy. We had a great time, and Dave gave Aidan a ride in a tractor:

Then we went back to the hotel, and the kids enjoyed some time in the water:

And just to get a pic in of the view from the hotel’s deck, here’s the breakfast we had Sunday morning: