Okanagan | roadquill1

Posts Tagged ‘Okanagan’

“Hordes Head to Ft. McMurray”?

Hello to all who may be still linked to this Roadquill.ca travel blog!
Our 2025 travels began in early April when we hooked up TruckHouse Jr. to the GMC Sierra and headed for Qualicum Beach – the “Brant Wood Carving and Art” show as sponsored by my woodworking group – Mid-Island Woodworkers’ Guild. We stayed overnight in the parking lot at the Rec Centre where we could be close at hand to help out as needed. It was a good opportunity to test out all systems for this year.

Now, however, we are on our way to Ft. McMurray, Alberta! With a decision not to travel into United States in protest against the railings of the US President, the next question was…”Where should we road travel this year?” The obvious answer was Ft. McMurray, and certain that hordes of travellers would be seeking out the same destination, we hurriedly booked our travel campgrounds for both the northward travel and for the return trip. (False conclusion, of course, but our granddaughter lives and works in the Fort so that was the sole reason for that destination choice.) Also, the concern was that many Canadians, like us, choosing to travel in Canada instead of US, as well as Americans seeking out cheaper dollar travel opportunities would rush to occupy all available camping venues.

Just a side note on the tow vehicle for our 2023 Escape 5.0 fifth wheel…it is still our 2005 GMC Sierra 3500. For a couple of years now as I grew increasingly restless about the aging of the truck, I began to search out alternatives. Seeing the pricing on the new 1 ton vehicles, I began to research towing with a smaller 1/2 ton pickup. That downgrade appeared to be doable if I were careful about payload and towing capacity. I visited dealerships for GMC, Ford and Dodge, and could have been tempted to purchase except our cash flow at the time was a bit questionable. Also, our GMC began to have coolant leak issues, and I was concerned about trade-in value on it. Late in November, 2024, as my mechanic explored the sources of the leaks (both coolant, and oil) he came to the conclusion that both heads would have to be replaced on the truck for a possible cost of $12,000. Yikes! With a December 3 week trip to Japan in the plans, I left the truck in his hands. When we returned in January, the truck wasn’t ready, but by February, all work had been completed and total bills were about $13,000. Therefore, I concluded – NO NEW TRUCK! We are happy (so far) with that decision.

So…back to the road travels…our plan was for a couple of days in the lower Mainland to visit with daughter’s family, and then head on to the Okanagan before turning north along Highway 5 and then 16 (Yellowhead) to Jasper, Edmonton and finally Grégoire Lake just south of Fr. McMurray. The Okanagan visit included a 2 night stop at Wright’s Beach Campground in Penticton, and a two night stop at Ellison Provincial Campground near Vernon.

At Penticton we honoured our commitment to our annual “Walk for Alzheimer’s” with a Sunday morning walk along Skaha Lake beach, and then circling around to complete the walk via the “canal path”. With temperatures in the mid-twenties, it was a great experience, but we were glad to complete the walk when it got up to 29º C.

Things seen on our 10 km Walk:

On Sunday we headed towards Vernon with a luncheon stop to visit cousins Norm and Shirley Caplette in Peachland. Later, as we approached Kalamalka Lake, the Map “app” (‘Roada’) had us turn left across the peninsula before arriving in Vernon, and after some twists and turns along a dodgy Bench Road, we were directed down “Okanagan Landing Bench Road”.

The last turn at the upper left was the very nasty “Okanagan Landing Bench Road”.

What a crummy piece of road work that was! “No trucks or trailers”! However, I wasn’t about to turn back so we headed down a very narrow, twisty and steep road to finally arrive at the Okanagan Landing Road. (An oncoming vehicle had to pull over to let us by!) We finally reached Ellison Provincial Park, found our lovely site and unhitched so that we could take a run into Vernon to have dinner with our friends, Bob and Alice Padgham, who have just transplanted from Whitefish, Montana.

Today, Monday, we are hanging about the camping area, and watching the ground squirrels. (Remember “Allen! Allen!” from YouTube?) We hiked down a very steep and long trail to the beach. (Mt. Doom climb on the return!)