Monday, September 23
Summer
is officially over as fall arrived today while we were sleeping. It was raining when we got up so we were in no
hurry to get started as we have a relative short drive today. We got on the road around 10:00, but instead
of leaving right away we visited a few more fruit stands.
We liked
the apples we bought so much yesterday that we decided to buy more and take
some home with us. The ambrosias that I
liked so much will keep well and should make the trip home according to several
of the fruit stands. We bought a bag of
them to take with us, but our search for aurora apples, Val’s favorite, was
fruitless (so to speak). We did find
some bottles of apple cider that looked good so we also bought a few bottles of
that.
After
finishing at the fruit stand, it was back on Highway 3 for our journey
east. About 20 miles out of town we
realized we had forgotten to get gas and had to decide whether to go on or turn
back. We looked at the map and there
weren’t many towns ahead and some of them looked pretty small so we decided we
couldn’t gamble on running out of gas and returned to Osoyoos.
On the
way back we started wondering if we would be able to take the apples we
bought in Canada across the border and decided to stop at the fruit stand we bought them
at and see if they knew. We got our gas
and drove over to the fruit stand and asked them about taking apples across the border crossing and
they weren’t sure, but thought it would be alright. Unfortunately, a customer overheard us and he said he didn’t think they were allowed so it ended up, we
really don’t know. We’ll just have to
take our chances at the border tomorrow, I’m going to hate it if we have to
throw away those very tasty apples we bought.
By the
time we finally left Osoyoos, it was after 11:30 so we weren’t making very good
time today, but it really doesn’t matter.
The countryside was beautiful with the first part of our drive through
ranch land that continued to be dryer than most of British Columbia that
we’ve seen. This is the bottom of the
fertile and agriculturally rich, Okanagan valley that has a very mild
climate. One of the farm stand owners
said it gets very hot here in the summer and sometimes reaches 100 degrees F.
 |
| A couple views of Osoyoos from above. |
We left
the ranchland and headed up into the forested mountains which although still
not as lush as the coastal areas we had visited, it was much greener than the
valley. It also started to rain and we
spent the day driving through everything from sprinkles to heavy rain. We stopped around 1:30 for a very good lunch
at the Wooden Spoon in Grand Forks, BC.
From there it was only a short drive to our destination for the night,
Trail, BC.
Trail is
a nice little town on the Columbia River so it was easy to find our hotel for
the night and we were checked in and in our room by 3:30. Once again, we had a late lunch and weren’t
very hungry so we decided to finish off the groceries we had bought last night
and of course, feast on freshly picked apples.
I have
to admit, the road has taken its toll on us and we are wearing down a bit. We are loving the drive as this route is very
scenic, so we don’t regret that, but we don’t have much energy to get out and
about in the evening. The weather doesn’t
help much either as we don’t exactly feel like getting out and walking in the
rain. So with that said, I will repeat
what I have been saying lately, we spent the night relaxing before calling it a
night.
Tonight
is our last night in Canada as tomorrow we cross the border into Idaho. Tomorrow night we will be staying just south
of Coeur d'Alene.
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