Statue of Ogopogo
I can't drive my old jeep on the Coquihalla Highway as it has long, murderous hills that I don't trust it can live through so I looked at flights and found a seat sale on West Jet but by the time I was ready to buy, the sale was over. I ended up finding a friend who was heading up that way on Sunday so hitched a ride with him. I would have liked to have left on Friday so I could have a weekend with Shonah, but beggars can't be choosers and I was very happy to have a free ride. (I offered to help pay for the gas but it was a business trip for him thus covered).
The weather in Kelowna was warmer than the coast by about 10 degrees, but still not the hot sunny days one expects up there by now. And a trip to the lake on my first day, to a beach I took the kids to almost daily when we lived there, was a huge disappointment. I guess coming right off of a trip to paradise (where visions of beaches that are straight out of Islands Magazine were still dancing in my head) made this beach look dirty, pebbly, and the water brown and cold. I dipped my toe in and cold doesn't quite cover it - it was freezing! So I left and never went back to the lake.
Certainly not the Caribbean.
Instead I spent my days (while Shonah was at work) reading, doing dishes, visiting with a couple of friends (one I had really wanted to see came down with a terrible cold the day I arrived so I didn't get to see her), and a bit of shopping. In the evenings Shonah and I went to see Pirates 4, had ice cream down in the City Park while people watching, walked through a pretty Japanese garden in the city center, went to Kelley O'Brian's for patcho's (YUM!), and watched a couple of DVD's and a Canucks game together. One day I went and had lunch with her at Disney Online Studios. What a great place to work. Their lunchroom is AMAZING with foosball, video games on a giant screen TV, a fully stocked kitchen - yougurt, fruit, veggie plate, granola bars, pudding cups, chips, pop, water, two $45,000 cappuccino machines, and lots of windows and nice seating.
The Japanese Gardens.
We headed back together on Friday after she was done work, and after we had 20 minutes or so with an old friend I hadn't seen for 15 years or more that we spied at a coffee shop right across from where Shonah works as we were driving away. That was really nice. Roberta and her husband, and me and mine were best of friends from just before we got married right up until we moved to Kelowna in '93. And, strangely enough, they lived in Kelowna and we had kept up a long distance friendship for years by visiting them every Easter and some summer weeks. Now that we lived there, we never saw them. I think they were really disappointed in us not joining their church, going to one we had heard about and wanted to check out instead. Whatever the reason, it had been too long since I had laid eyes on her. Funnily enough, my daughter and hers work at the same place and have continued their childhood friendship for the past few years, so I had sort of kept up with how Roberta was doing through them. Next time I go to Kelowna, the two of us have plans to see much more of each other and renew our friendship. I am really looking forward to that.
