British Columbia
7:34am - 4:23pm / Distance 206.5 mi
Min Alt 666 ft / Max Alt 2043 ft
Okanagan Falls Provincial Park
Left about 8am from our campground at Nason Creek Falls near the Glacier Peak wilderness area (Wenatchee National Forest) in Washington. Our first stop was at the Bavarian Bakery, which Therese had found through Yelp. Of course, we had to grab two caches first – one traditional and one webcam cache. The baker was a very nice, and friendly, German(?) guy. He wanted to give us a pastry tour…he ended by telling us that he had to have something cinnamon because Americans like cinnamon and those who are not adventurous can always opt for the familiar. Sure enough, the next customer hemmed and hawed and finally opted for the cinnamon! I had a warm apple strudel. It was nicely sweet with tender apples. T had the poppyseed almond claw. Huge and A+ fantastic!
Our next stop was in Wenatchee at the Washington Apple Commission Visitor Center. The lady there, who obviously liked to follow the rules and give out very detailed information, was quite nice, but we did have to escape her clutches. The kind that you don’t want to ask too many questions of or you will never get away. Anyhow, she gave us four packages of apples and two apple juices – which later became our dessert (along with a little cinnamon, sugar, brandy, granola and whipped cream. Yum! Watched an incredibly interesting video about apple production in the area. Fascinating…15 billion apples/year! Hand picked, hand pruned, with fancy processing machinery to sort and scan the apples. It's fascinating how much technology is used in the packing process. No more worms--internal scans included! Apples with bad scans (meaning something bad on the inside – softspots, etc), didn’t pass the quality test and were plucked out of the line. So, now we know why when you buy a bag or box of apples, they are so perfectly combined in similar sizes. Oh, and very clean…! The only germs from humans will come from those nasty customers at the grocery store who want to touch everything!!
Headed north, stopped at the little town, Oroville, just south of the border for a trip through the visitor center/museum, bathroom, caching and lunch (Lynn made us egg salad sandwiches for lunch). Cute museum – the guy gave us a quarter to run the model train! Had a nice display on Hobo signs. It took us about 15 minutes to go through customs – nice guy there too. The main concerns were weapons and alcohol. They didn’t ask us about any fruits/veggies.
Continuing on, we were amazed at the numbers of cherry trees and grape vines – mile after mile after mile. Absolutely beautiful. Come to find out, we were driving through the wine capitol of Canada! Stopped for the night at the Okanagan Falls Provincial Park. Very nice little campground along the river. Funny thing: little bathrooms look like outhouses, but there is a flush toilet inside. Quaint. Convenient thing: trail/bike path from the campground along the river to the wildlife preserve. Met another camper along the way who mentioned that we might want to stop and check out the box on the fence a ways down the trail – it said, “Look Inside.” It was kind of like our lit stop except that there were photos of the wildlife that they had seen in the area as well as a little info piece on brown bats and a log book to sign. The photos of the birds were simply fantastic. Returned to camp after our 8 mile ride, had some dinner (bbq burgers) and the apple dessert. Great end to a great day.
