Okanagan Tues-Wed

On an early morning walk, I came across proof that loons do, in fact, live in the Okanagan. Either that or the Ogopogo has finally made another appearance.

We decided to drive down to Okanagan Falls, which is sits at the southern tip of Lake Skaha, which in turn is directly south of Okanagan Lake. The lake/river system actually extends all the way down to Lake Osoyoos which traverses the Canada/US border into Washington. In OK Falls, we stopped at Tickleberry’s, a local, and VERY popular, ice cream shop. There was a long, physically-distanced line-up outside the shop that almost caused us to bail but we were told it “moved fast” so we decided to wait. It did actually move pretty quickly until we were second in line to order ice cream. The group in front of us consisted of two sisters with their families, parents, and grandmother who all had to sort out what they wanted (how many scoops? which of the 57 flavours? waffle cone, regular, or dish? where did grandma go? does anyone know what she wants? maple WALNUT??? that can’t be right, go double check, I think she’s in the washroom. Nana? NAAANNA!)

With my huge chocolate-pistachio ice cream cone in hand, we hopped in the car and headed off to a couple of the local area wineries.

• See Ya Later – We booked ahead for a tasting, but ended up being a half hour late due to the Tickleberry’s popularity. It all worked out, though, because apparently a bunch of people showed up at our pre-booked time and were thankfully gone by the time we arrived. We enjoyed a more typical tasting, with the (unmasked) server telling us stories of the winery’s origins. See Ya Later lays claim to a gentleman named Major Hugh Fraser, who purchased the land in 1920 after visiting with his faithful dog Jimmy My Pal. The Major planted some vineyards, and See Ya Later was born. Many of their blended wines are named after dogs that he owned through his life, and then apparently buried around the hillside. The stones he used to mark their burial sites were then hustled all up and relocated under a hemlock tree for visitors to enjoy. It might be just me, but that part seems a little weird.

• NightHawk – This tiny little winery was empty when we arrived, except for the (unmasked) owner or server – I never did quite catch which. The wines were unremarkable (which didn’t stop us from continuing with our buying frenzy) but the labels were beautiful! They were inspired by paintings from a local Kelowna artist named Alex Fong (www.alexfong.com). I am in love with one of his pieces that was hanging in the tasting room. The art wasn’t for sale, but I did buy a jigsaw puzzle of one of his other paintings.

Wednesday was Canada Day so we slept in and had nice bit of breakfast on our balcony where we were treated to an impromptu Canada Day parade. Later, on our way out, several more lavishly-dressed Canadians offered us free drinks of cucumber water and chips.

No day is complete without a morning sugar-fix, so we hopped in the car and hit the Summerland Sweetshop. They sell a much-coveted brand of blackberry fruit syrup that Jeff can barely live without so of course we also purchased some jam, a pottery casserole dish, cookie cutters, and peanut brittle. Coronavacation imposes very few restrictions on our budget.

We stuck close to “home” and visited just two wineries today.

• Lightning Rock is named for, you guessed it, a rock that was split in half after being struck by lightning. Friends of friends love this place which is what inspired our visit. Their wines are not bad. Thin reds, but we did purchase an interesting dry Pinot Rose and a sparkling wine that I passed on tasting but Jeff enjoyed. The owner was a friendly guy who unfortunately had a bad habit of doing a weirdly disturbing snorking thing to clear his nose every 10 seconds while talking, and, trust me, he had a lot to say.

• TH Wines absolutely wins first prize for most COVID-conscious winery. It’s a very small winery, and they had set up the tasting table just in the doorway of their warehouse. There were two long tables set up in parallel about 6 feet apart, and the proprietor put a mask on to pour our tastings and then stepped behind the second table before taking his mask off to gives us tasting notes and answer any questions. For that reason alone I purchased a couple of bottles.