Phase III Summerland & Okanagan August 12th to 21st

On our way to the Okanangan we like to stop along the way, spend the night and golf the following morning. This year we stopped in Revelstoke and stayed at the Powder Inn. It was a great place and the price included breakfast and a round of golf. Revelstoke has a beautiful course and I forgot my camera in the car so I just snapped a couple of pictures after our round. Too bad, because the course is beautiful. The top picture is from the 15th hole and the bottom one is from the 9th hole. Gorgeous settings in the mountains, with the course winding along the Columbia River.

Casa Lily

We arrived in Summerland on August 12th and we booked this place online so you really don't know what you're getting into even though the pictures on the site are very appealing. It is called 'Casa Lily' and advertised a romantic suite situated on the hill, east of the highway in Summerland. The other attraction was a private pool that was exclusively for our use! It was perfect and we had hot weather our entire time so we used the pool daily.

This is the front driveway of this rental. It is owned by Barb Wilson who serves with the Coast Guard out of Victoria and is away a lot. She hired a really nice lady named Joy to look after her place in her absence. Joy not only looked after Barb's place but took care of us. She bent over backwards to make our stay enjoyable and did we enjoy it! We'll give you a tour...

This is the South view of the rental and where Joy stayed. Our place was in the walk out one level below, to the right in this photo.

A view of the orchard beside the rental with a view of Okanangan Lake. The orchard is owned by Maria & Francesco who were very nice and friendly people.

Walking down from the driveway you get a peek of the pool which is where we stay. It's a basement suite which has been renovated and tastefully decorated. It has a South Western, Tuscan look and feel.

Another view of the orchard looking south and a look at the gated area around the pool. It's very private.

Joy loves to garden and does all the garden for the property and this is one of many flower pots she made.

Nice vine covered arbour over the gate into our area which we could lock up when we left for the day and at night. Here's a close up of the grapes. They weren't quite ready to eat yet. These grapevines grew all around the gated area of the pool.

This was the cleanest pool we've ever seen! Joy would pull back the night cover and clean the pool every morning around 6:30 AM.

Here is the entrance to our suite and the patio doors that lead into the living room.

I'm enjoying my morning tea in the warm sun...just the best!

Martin enjoying his morning under the patio umbrella. Great patio area with the BBQ too.

Here is a couple of pots that Joy made. They are so pretty and they just flourished. Barb had a automatic watering system so Joy didn't have to water the plants every day!

Here is a closer look at the painting of the Casa Lily in the bottom of the pool done by a local artist.

Now for a tour of the inside...The above picture is the front entrance with some really nice South Western art.

Cute little kitchen which had everything we needed. Joy had stocked the cupboards with local spices and sauces for our use. Also, things like canned jellies and blueberries in white chocolate sauce...yummy!

Very comfortable living room as you can see. Fully equipped TV console with cd and dvd player and tan coloured leather sofa with a warm snugly throw . She gave us all these old movies we could watch.

Patio doors that open up to the pool area.

Here we are getting ready for our morning run before it gets too hot.

The best part of our run was to run into the pool after. It was a great way to cool off and so refreshing!

Pool Party

Pool Party...we had a couple of them! It was really fun to share the pool and relax and enjoy the weather. Here is my sister and nephew, Nadine and Shail. We finally had summer out here and it felt so good.

Martin and Shail catching some rays...

Nadine and me lounging away. It was nice to splash the water on you when ever you got too hot!

We're all looking a little serious above but we were unaware that Martin took this picture. Victor and Shail are pretty serious eating up the guacamole dip though. After we dried off Martin cooked us a great meal on the BBQ and we could still enjoy the pool side patio....and no mosquitos!

We're pretty happy here, ready to dig into our dinner and enjoy the rest of the summer evening.

Lake Day

This is our 'Lake Day' at Mom & Victor's in Penticton. The top picture is taken from their patio where you can see how close their house is to the lake. This is an adult community home but their families can stay and visit, but it's usually pretty quiet on the beach. It feels like you have your own private beach and it's nice to go for a swim. The lake is really shallow for quite a ways and you can see the bottom as you wade out.

From Mom & Victor's patio looking North and South down the property. The landscape is well groomed which is taken care of by the property maintenance crew. It is very private and quiet there and such a lovely location. It's about a 7 minute walk into the south end of the Okanangan lake where there are many restaurants to enjoy. I think we've been to most of them!

Mom and Victor are out for their daily swim in the lake. It's the best way to cool off on a hot day. I joined them too!

The picture above is a view of the Okanagan lake from Summerland. We went for a walk from our rental property down the hill to the town of Summerland for lunch one day. It was really hot on the way down so imagine how hot it was on the way up! It was tough but we sure enjoyed the pool when we got back, so it was worth it!

Oysoyoos

It was hard to leave our little Oasis but we did want to golf in the Okanangan. We golfed in Oysoyoos which is a whole day trip but very enjoyable. We are golfing in the desert so you can see the sagebrush surrounding the course. If you lose a ball in there you don't go looking for it unless you want to run into a rattlesnake!

This is a gorgeous view from the 14th hole looking south down the valley towards the U.S. border.

I caught Martin teeing off and if you look closely the ball is in the middle of the picture so he hit it pretty straight...good shot!

We stopped for lunch after our golf game and Inka'mip Winery and it was just lovely. Beautiful location with a stunning view of the lake and the orchards. We ordered this great lunch which was a sample of the various of native dishes to try, like bannock, dried fish and lots of other interesting tapas. It was excellent, we'd go back there again!

From our table just to the right we looked onto the pool for guests of the resort who stay here right beside the winery. It is a gorgeous property in the desert.

We couldn't go to Oysoyoos without doing some wine touring. We stopped at some of our favourite ones and discovered a new one. It is a lot of fun. We took a picture of this winery, Road 13 for it's unique design. It is very impressive inside the tasting room with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the valley. They have a lovely patio outside now but we haven't tried yet so maybe next year!

The picture above is from Road 13 winery showing the vinyard and gorgeous view of the valley.

Coming back from the south towards Penticton we stopped at the Hawthorn Mountain Vinyards overlooking Okanagan Falls at the south end of Skaha Lake. This is a breathtaking view up the valley at late afternoon on a sunny summer day. Hawthorn Mountain produces See Ya Later wines - mostly white wines named after some dead dogs that the founder of the property owned. We arrived after the tasting room closed, but I begged them to let us try a few, given that it's a bit of a drive up from the valley. Of course, they made a sale so they were happy.

The Okanagan Valley is an amazingly beautiful place to spend some time in the summer, and they keep coming up with ways to help us enjoy ourselves. We will certainly be back every year.