British Columbia

Oct 22 (Kelowna) - We woke up in our insanely cold tent and began the awesome drive to Kelowna. We decided to take the longer, more scenic route which involved going through the same road (the Icefield Pkwy) we took from Banff. This road was unreal! We were literally driving ON a mountain. They had cut out a little road in the mountain and we drove all through it. I kept having to blink because I didn't bealieve my eyes!! We were overlooking glaciers and crazy lakes with blue/green waters. (WARNING: The story I am about to tell is quite sad for any animal lover). We were driving along and BOOM, Eric's car sadly hit a bird... but at least it wasn't a moose or a bear or I probably would not be here writing about this. The little thieving bird stole the Hyundai symbol off the front of Eric's car. But, it will forever live in Jasper which is pretty cool. I tried my first ice cream float from A&W which was sooo delish! In the wise words of Snookie and her thoughts towards deep fried pickles, it changed my life. As we got closer to Kelowna, it went from 0 degrees to +15 in the matter of about 2 hours. Gotta love Kelowna. We arrived at our hotel - the comfort inn "west side" which we were very skeptical about. We had booked it on hotwire where you pay before they tell you what hotel you're at but it turned out to be pretty awesome. 50 bucks a night and it included breakfast - which we of course turned into a grocery shop! Cheaper than a hostel... ooo ya!!

Oct 23 (Kelowna) - After our lovely free breakfast, we headed to the waterpark called h2o. It was by far the coolest water park I have ever been to (although, we still were the oldest kids there... by far). The water park had a contraption which I am going to try to describe to you. Picture a water slide about 20 feet wide but it had a current pushing up the slide. You took a buggie board down the slide then the current pushed you back up to the top. Eric & I both tried surfing it and wiped out pretty hard a few times but I definitely need one of those in my back yard! After the water park, I dragged Eric to the "apple fair." Turns out the apple fair was just a kiosk in the mall that had about 30 different types of apples to try. They were so yummy! They had some apples that I had never even heard of before. They sold apples for sooo cheap. It was 2 bucks for 10 apples or 5 bucks for 30! We then went to the Summer Hill winery for a tour and wine tasting. The vinyard is stunning and they had some really awesome wines!

Oct 24 (Kelowna) - I woke up this morning and realized that Kelowna is where I want to live. It is such an amazing city! Stunning, warm, friendly... just perfect! After this ponder, we headed out to another winery - Cedar Creek winery. They had some really delicious wines as well. We bought a bottle of white wine that was sooo good. It was a 22009 Gewürztraminer. I definitely recomend it! We then headed to Whistler. We decided to take the longer route that was apparently more beautiful (the 97C). It was 13 and sunny and within literally 5 minutes, it went to 1 degree. Every tree went from beautiful yellows, reds and oranges to dead and covered in snow. We knew that perfect Kelowna was behind us. The drive from this point on gets pretty interesting... About 5 minutes into our drive on the highway we saw a sign saying "Check your gas. 111 km until the next gas station. WHAT A STUPID SIGN - Okay thanks, I have checked my gas and realized I need some... NOW WHAT!? Of course, we had about 1/8 of a tank. oy vey. For about the first 15 minutes we saw hope in making it... then all hope was gone. BUT we then saw a sign saying the next gas station was in a town called "Hope." We thought maybe it was a sign that we would make it! I am happy to say that after using the reserve for 28 minutes, we made it! We continued on the highway and out of nowhere, the highway went down to 1 lane (for both directions) and was covered in rock. AH. I am thankful to say we made it through this too. Just when we thought nothing else could happen, a cop pulls us over for speeding. But we both flashed him big smiles and he let us off with a warning. Phew! At about 7 we got to our hotel - the Mountainside Lodge. It was INSANE! We had a full kitchen, a jacuzzi, a fireplace, a kitchen table with a stunning couch on one side of it. The bath products were made by Bath & Body Works. Awesome Hotel! Gotta love hotwire. We paid only 64 bucks for this one! After cooking a delicious stir fry (we of course had to take advantage of the full kitchen) we drank our bottle of wine we had bought that morning and hung out. We then ventured off to Fat Tony's for some pizza and then hit the hay.

Oct 25 (Whistler) - We went to Whistler Olympic Park and saw the sites where the Olympics took place. It was pretty neat to see such Canada pride. But the coolest thing we saw was A BLACK BEAR! It was about 5 feet from the car! We parked and watched it wonder for about 15 minues and got some awesome pics of it! After we saw the giant bear, we were on cloud nine and we headed on the beautiful ride to good old Vancouver!

... There are many more stories to tell but this post was getting a little long so stay tuned for more to come in a few days!!