Penticton On A Whim

I should preface this by saying that our trip was not necessarily on a whim. We had been invited by some friends to visit them for a weekend at the hotel that they booked in Penticton. They had given us ample time to accept the offer and make proper arrangements. Why I refer to this as a trip on a whim is because up until a week before the weekend of departure I was unable to make solid plans as a result of the uncertainty of the evolving playoff baseball schedule. It took right up to the last day of the season to know what place my team was going to finish (we came in second place, thank you very much) and who we would be matched up with for our opening game. By Monday I got the news that it would be on Sunday at noon. This would have been our last choice, if it was up to us. This meant that we would have to be on the road back home no later than 7:00am Sunday morning. That is early even if you went to bed at a decent time the night before, and I had a vague idea of how we were most likely going to spend our Saturday night, and I imagined it would be significantly more difficult to be up by 7:00. Throughout the week we flip-flopped a number of times questioning whether it would be worth it to drive such a distance for really only one day of fun. In the end we decided that it was 110% worth it and had solid plans for an amazing weekend!

Another thing that I believe is worth mentioning is that our friends were only planning on arriving early Saturday afternoon. So we could either leave Saturday morning, like they were planning on doing, or we could go up Friday night and find out own place to crash for the night. Ultimately we decided that to maximize the limited time that we already had, that we would head to the interior after work on Friday night. The sleeping arrangements that we made were simple. No need to book a hotel, why pay for something you would be using as nothing more than a glorified flop house? No need to book a campsite, why pay for the opportunity to fumble around in the pitch black to set up a site that you just plan on taking down the very next morning? So what did we decide to do instead? Well hatchbacks are fantastic at carrying large amounts of cargo and large pieces of cargo, and....well....let’s face it in this situation Shannon and I were not much more than large pieces of cargo. So packed a few sleeping bags and pillows, folded down the seats and there you have it! You got yourself safe, efficient, and cheap accommodations for the evening. The only real question was where can we park the car for the night? A short Google search later (http://freecampsites.net/#!penticton) we had our answer, Brenda Lake it was!

So once again Shannon and I struggled our way through another Friday at work. Fridays are so full of anticipation, which is usually a great feeling. But anticipation can also grind away at your patience. It takes no small amount of will power to delay your gratification and concentrate at the tasks at hand. This is nothing new, and is not specific to any one industry. Everyone should have felt the feeling that I am describing, and if you haven’t you either really love your job, in which case I will stand up and give you a much deserved standing ovation, or you do not have very good weekend plans. If you love your job that much you are truly the exception, rather than the rule, and I could not be happier for you. You are living the way most people only dream of. If you do not have any exciting weekend plans, than I ask, why not? Life is for enjoying, and being happy. If you cannot find a way to do this, I would strongly recommend finding a way to fix that. That is not the way anyone should be living their lives, everyone deserves to be happy and I personally invite anyone who is not to email me and I would love to work with you to find a way to fix this for you. I am by no means an expert on this subject. I do not have any qualifications other than my life experience. I have put a lot of effort into finding the best way to be happy and have spent an exaggerated amount of time in the past few months educating myself on all the best way to do this. I am nothing more than a person who loves to help others and loves to be happy J and I am very willing to share with anyone that is interested in learning.

I apologize for getting side tracked. It is just a topic that I am very passionate about, and would be interested in sharing my knowledge and experience to anyone who is looking for change and is interested and open to hearing my opinion on the subject. Ok back to the trip. So I admit I once again I skipped out of work a little bit earlier than I usually would. I do not feel guilty about it though, I was one of the few people in the office that stuck around as long as I did....come on, Friday before the long weekend? Anyone that knows they won’t be fired for it is going to be skipping out as soon as they can. Plus I still had a bit of packing to do. When I say a little, that is based on my assumption of the situation, not the reality. The reality was that it was not too much more packing than I thought, but it took more time than I had allotted for. So my departure was more rushed than I had intended or preferred. I did arrive on time to pick up Shannon, I thank the re-opening of Powell street for that *mini bow*. Much appreciated!

No sooner had I arrived outside her occupational establishment, when I was so pleasantly graced with her presence. Perfect timing! It’s Penticton time! Fist pump like no one’s watching....or like everyone is!! Two super-psyched weekend vacationers in the car? Check! Plans to avoid traffic, non-existent....But we were nicely surprised much like we were on our Portland trip. Special order for no traffic, was, once-again, delivered right on time. The type of delivery that you would tip a piece of gum AND a wad of cash for the service.

Kevin McCallister: I`m sorry. You wanted a tip.
Cedrick the Bellman: Umn, that won`t be necessary, sir. I still have some
(Shows him wad of gum)
Cedrick the Bellman: tip left over.
Kevin McCallister: (pulls out a wad of cash) No tip? Okay.
Cedrick the Bellman: Uh, wait wait wait wait. Wait, wait.

(Kevin closes door)

So traffic was a breeze, well, such few stops that it might as well be referred to as a breeze. This trip was not catered by Big Lou’s in the same way the last one was so we had to decide where we wanted to stop. We decided that Hope would be the place.

Our original idea was to try and find a bar and grill type place for some classic pub-grub and a nice relaxing beer to push us down the last couple of steps to full relaxation mode. Nothing washes away the last little bit of anxiousness still hanging around from the work week like and ice cold brew. After an unintentional tour of downtown Hope we found a place that seemed to fit the bill. It was definitely a hole in the wall, but we had high expectations that what it lacked it in eye pleasing décor it made up for in food flavor. The food did look promising but the prospect of finding a place to be seated did not. At this point we sached (actually we just walked lol) our way across the parking lot to a place called Homes Restaurant (http://www.homerestaurants.ca/). Our one and only experience with Homes in the past had been quite pleasant. Humongous breakfast portions, overwhelmingly delicious (and similarly humongous) pie and the wifi to post pictures of the food to make your friends jealous. Can you really expect anything more? So we decided that Homes was an excellent alternative, and so did a large number of other people. It appears that reservations are needed for a Friday night out on the town in Hope. We later found a place called Rolly’s Pancake House (http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/85/1490950/restaurant/British-Columbia/Rollys-Pancake-House-Hope). Not much to look at….we actually drove by it our first time through the city, and it caught our eye as a restaurant but did not look all that impressive. The inside is not much better, to look at that is. The service and food were by no means a reflection of how it looked. We were seated by a very pleasant gentleman (I have a hunch it might have been Rolly himself…looked a lot like the caricature on the restaurant sign) and served by a surprisingly attentive waiter. I will admit that he looked more like a participant in the X-Games than he did a waiter but his service was impeccable. We especially took to his off-the-menu suggestion to exchange our fries for poutine. Let’s be honest, there is nothing healthy about restaurant food, especially fries, especially fries covered in gravy, especially fries covered in gravy and cheese curds but they are delicious and a worthwhile look-the-other-way-while-I-feast indulgence from time to time. It was an appreciated suggestion and we enjoyed ourselves. Thanks Rolly’s you put a smile on our faces and plenty of food in our bellies! And thanks to the waiter for his pleasant demeanor and noteworthy service. You are a breath of fresh air to all of those people that are way too eager to jump to conclusions based on how someone looks. Respect!

With our minds no longer focused on where our next meal was going to come from, we shifted our attention back to the road. We were roughly at the halfway point and the sunlight was beginning to fade, it was time to get back behind the wheels and make our way to our destination. So we drove, and drove and then drove some more. Nothing worth mentioning other than a minor difficulty around Merritt. In the past Merritt has been the epicenter for a number of obstacles we have faced along out journeys. The two that come to mind are the speeding ticket I got while “seeing how fast my car could go” and the time I decided it was too much of a hassle to stop in for gas. I was able to avoid having my car impounded, and I was able to roll into West Kelowna on nothing more than fumes, so not tragic events, but worth mentioning. This time it was some minor confusion with the GPS. It told me to go one way, and I was very confident it was the other way. In this case I was correct J take that technology!

From that point it was a quick jaunt to our destination just outside of Kelowna. We found the exit we needed, found the road we wanted and were in good shape to arrive at our place of interest. From that point on we were driving along a logging road, so our progress slowed to a snail’s pace, switching back and forth with the high beams so as not to drive off the road and over a cliff lol. After about 15 minutes on the logging road we started to question how important it actually was to get to the campsite. It was late and the road was deserted, so our minds wandered toward the possibility of just pulling off the road and making camp. Of course by camp I meant move our luggage to the front and ourselves to the back, unroll the sleeping bags and go to sleep. So that is exactly what we ended up doing. We found a perfect little turn off….I was only mildly concerned that I would be blocking what appeared to be another (lesser used) driving path. But we were far enough off the main road that we were confident we should be fine.

We learned out first lesson of caution very early in our car sleeping experience. Make sure that you disable the alarm before exiting the locked vehicle. This was a lesson that we learned soon after I almost gave myself a heart attack getting out to “use the washroom”. In the midst of panic mode I was able to find the keys and put an end to the temporary chaos that I was solely responsible for, waking up the entire wilderness…..my bad *shrugs and smiles*. That is one way to try and be discreet lol. Once all the excitement died down we were ready to settle in for the night. Shannon was concerned about bears and I was concerned about people calling the cops thinking we were in some kind of accident. But settling in for the night was more important and was soon the only concern left. We attempted to watch a movie on the tablet, we were not successful in watching it in its entirety but it did a great job of putting us to sleep, a great way to end the first day of our trip J. Not your typical Friday night but one that I very much enjoyed and will have fond memories of.