June 25, 2019
Okanagan Falls Provincial Park
Yesterday we passed through Yakima and had a nice brunch
with Judd’s brother Bill. Bill heard the
nearby waffle house was good. We heard
that Denny’s served breakfast all day. Bill could walk to the waffle house any
day so we drove him to Denny’s. The brothers had the Grand Slam—when the
waitress asked if they wanted bacon and sausage the answer was yes. Bill got the giggles when Judd paused and
looked at me defiantly. (You could opt to have 4 bacon or 4 sausage or the 2
bacon/2 sausage combo.) I had the grits with a sunny side egg on the side. A
good time was had by all.
It was a 5+ hour drive to our campsite. We picnic-lunched half way at the rest stop
at Dry Falls State Interpretive Center (where we had visited last fall along
with the Coulee Dam.) Dry Falls is the waterless waterfall, a left-over gorge
where the largest water fall on earth was known to exist: 5 times wider than Niagara and twice the
height of Niagara. On this trip, the bottom was
full of spring rain and winter run off— the geography just as
impressive—but the Visitor Center in the summer sports a food truck and we
supplied up with iced coffee for the rest of the day’s journey.
We rehearsed our responses to things the Canadian border crossing
guards could ask: “are you carrying any fruit or vegetables?” no? YES!
Forgot about the fresh Rainier cherries we just bought at the Washington
roadside. “Are you carrying any cannabis
products?” yes? NO! We gave away our edible gift from Californian
friends to a stranger at the Oregon vineyard. (I was still a Federal employee
at the time and liable for random drug testing and firing.) At least Judd and I
agreed on how to answer about firearms.
All the guard asked was, “where is home (Maine); where are you going;
(Alaska) any firearms? NO!….. we passed!
We didn’t get out of the car for a photo on the international border until
AFTER we were in the country. We thought
Sheldon would look suspicious. We got tailed when we took him out for a photo
op at Cal Tech.
 |
| Driving along Okanagan Lake |
Okanagan Falls Provincial Park is part of the Canadian park
system (equivalent to our State park systems.) Clean, courteous, Canadian! The
campsite (everyone Canadian) recycles everything. Judd had made reservations on
line for our first few nights. The camp host Bob, in his golf cart, greeted
us. I was almost choking from downing my
celery so fast so he wouldn’t know we were having bloody Mary’s in our coffee
mugs. Turns out, you can drink alcohol
if you stay at your site. We will. We got in our walk down the river trail,
dinner (chicken chili which was defrosted from Walla Walla) and a brutal**
backgammon game, before it started to rain.
We simply popped into our tiny home and finished up the evening with
cribbage and whist. We discovered we can play games by my battery-operated
twinkle lights and don’t need to use up our big bright camper lights.
**Judd plays a mean defensive backgammon game—he doubles up
on all the home slots where I would have to get back into the game if bumped.
At one point, bumped, he had blocked all entry points and I could not play for
5 rounds until he started to vacate the area.
It was ugly (for me.)
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