Friday, June 14, 2013

A mini vacation June 11 - 13, 2013

Took a little mini-vacation - just need to get out of the city for a couple of days and with a number of volunteer assignments over the next several weeks and then my Rockies hiking trip this was the best dates available for me - had a rough idea of where I wanted to go and where I might stay but first it was a visit to the Peridontist for a follow up on the recent surgery.  After getting the okay from the peridontist on my dental surgery I loaded up the truck and headed out - ended up camping the first night at the Kettle River provincial campsite - have camped there before and it is a good spot - the river was running high so some of the shoreline wasn't accessible but I had a good choice of sites - It was also my first time camping at  1/2 price for seniors until June 14, 2013 - biked along parts of the adjacent Trans-Canada Trail before starting up a small campfire - I had some wood with me and found some more in some of the adjacent vacant campsites.

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/kettle_rv/

Awoke to a very cold morning and shortly after the gate opened at 7 AM I headed out - originally planned to head up Highway 33 to Kelowna and a hotel stay for the night but the weather looked better to the east - so I headed for Castlegar and then along Highway 6 to Naskup and then the Needles ferry before ending up in Vernon at the Econo Lodge - it was showing as $85.00 a night on Hotels.com but got it for $70.00 which appears to be there Internet rate - had a large Irish Shepard's Pie for dinner at Kelly O'Bryans across the street from the hotel and then turned in for a good night sleep.


http://www.choicehotels.ca/en/econo_lodge-hotel-cn994

http://www.kellyobryans.com/

The weather had turned stormy - showers overnight and there is a severe thundershower warning for the area - head out but don't make any of my planned stops because of the weather and arrive back in Vancouver at suppertime. Will post some photos and video a little later. Cheers