Summer trip – part 2

The plan was to leave the Okanagan and head off on a short camping trip at one of our favorite provincial campsites: Kettle River. We had to make sure we hit a few more wineries during the trip too of course. On the way east we stopped at Platinum Bench Winery, bought a few bottles and some of their delicious bread. (We’d been there before and really liked their wines. We still do.) And then on a bit of a whim went by Le Vieux Pin. They are one of the sponsors of the Axel Merckx Granfondo race; they made a special wine for the race and are the official lunch stop for riders on the granfondo who want/need a bit of a break. Husband had stopped there briefly during his ride, but had no strong feelings about going for a tasting. We got there and they were busy, not packed, but they didn’t seem to have space/time for more people. But the staff there were great. They were very attentive to us and another group that arrived at the same time despite not having room at the counter. And their wines are fantastic. Neither of us were huge fans of the special race wine they did, but their other wines were well worth the visit. We left with a few bottles. If we were still drinking wine like we used to (as in, before the boy) I might have pushed to sign up for their wine club, but we just drink too little nowadays to keep up with more than one wine club. (I’ll get back to that later.) If you like wine, I’d highly recommend a stop there. (Since this isn't my - basically now dead - food and wine blog, I won't go into any tasting details here.)

Then we were off to Kettle River for a few days of camping. The weather was great, no rain, not too hot. The highlights of the trip were getting a bit of a wasp sting on my tongue and getting in a trail run. Since my oly race I hadn’t been doing much. One day of commute-biking and a short hill workout in Naramata. But it was time to start moving again (especially given the fact that I was registered for a trail race a few days after we were scheduled to get back home), and I was looking forward to spending some time on the Trans Canada Trail – it runs right through the campsite. I got in a nice slow 15 km run, which was about 10 minutes past enjoyable. Some pictures taken on my run:

As for the wasp sting, well, just a friendly reminder to check your cans before drinking when there are wasps around. I was enjoying a nice post-run beverage, and left my beer unsupervised for a few moments. When I returned to it and took a sip I ended up with a not-too-happy wasp in my mouth. I knew what was happening pretty quickly and spat it out before it did too much damage. It stung a little, but didn’t swell up too much. It was mostly a graze with the stinger I think, and since I know I’m not allergic, I wasn’t too worried.

On the way home a few days later we stopped at 2 more wineries I highly recommend: Orofino and Clos du Soleil. They’re in a lesser known wine region in BC that is well worth a bit of a detour: the Similkameen Valley. We’d been to Orofino before (and planned on signing up for their wine club, which we did), but Clos du Soleil was new to us. We picked up a few bottles at each. Now we just have to have some friends over for a few (or more) dinners to ‘get rid of’ all the wine we brought back. With both of us taking our health and athletic activities more seriously (as well as getting older), we go through our wine stocks much more slowly than we used to.