The Ogopogo, lake country and the lost ipod

The trip back from the Rockies seemed much faster than the trip there.  Even the distance in between towns was so much shorter.  In part this may have been due to it being beautiful spring weather, rather than the snow, fog and ice of the trip up.  It was a relief the distance between towns was shorter, as I forgot to buy petrol when we stopped for lunch at perhaps the prettiest location for a McDonalds that I've seen - the golden arches framed by white mountains.  But, fuel light flashing dangerously, we made it to Sicamous for petrol (gas).

We turned off the Trans-Canada Highway at that point, and headed south, down towards Kelowna.  Almost immediately, as the mountains decreased in size, we were in lake country.  Our destination for the first night was Kelowna, a pretty town on the shores of Lake Okanagan, famous not only for its wine and stone-fruit growing district, but for the Ogopogo monster.  The Ogopogo is a relative of the Loch Ness monster, and we were hoping for a sighting.  Alas, the only sighting we had was this one, by the shore (see picture above).   It was a really beautiful area, huge lakes that ran the length of mountain valleys, and with the season changing from winter to spring, all the fruit trees (cherry, peach and others) were in full blossom.  The region, and Kelowna in particular, are very popular summer tourist spots and we saw many gorgeous little cottages around the edges of lakes, right on the beaches.  This picture (below) is of Lake Okanagan, taken right from the shore in the city centre - perhaps we've snapped the Ogopogo coming up for air?  Can you see it perhaps?

We had a very good pizza in Kelowna, from Bordello's Pizzeria downtown who did us takeaway though they were more of a nice restaurant.   One of us was anxious to get back to the motel and 8pm 'Discovery:  Truth' on cable TV ("it will be the last time I get to see it Mum! we're leaving the country tomorrow and you won't get cable!").  No, I won't get cable, even more adamantly than before this trip, having experienced it most everywhere we've been and seen the addictive effect it has on Angus.  I take particular exception to his penchant for 'Air Crash Investigation', under the circumstances.  Though Discovery: Truth this night had a hilarious segment with this South American guy describing, by imitation, the werewolf transformation that happens to seventh sons in his remote village.  His imitation, clearly done with the most serious intent, was an absolute pearler.  I was doubled over in laughter as the man / imitation werewolf began his snarling and howling, and the presenter / investigator of 'Destination:  Truth' was covering his mouth with his hand to hide his laughter as the camera cut occasionally to him during this demonstration.

The next morning, we drove the four or so hours back to Vancouver, aiming to return the car by 2pm and get to the airport to check in and clear security for our Air Alaska flight to LA.

As we approached the city (we were in Abbotsford, part of greater Vancouver but a separate 'city') I decided to take a short cut, and leave the Trans-Canada Highway (which we were back on).  It seemed to me we could easily avoid going right back into the city, and could instead cut across Surrey to Richmond and the Airport.  You'd think I'd have learned.

This added about an hour to the trip, as we negotiated dreadful peak hour (school pickup time perhaps??) traffic, taking many more shortcuts to try to get to less congested roads.  We didn't actually get lost, or not for very long anyway, but it was still a very bad idea to have had.   As we approached Richmond to return the car, Budget rang to say they had found the Ipod Touch we'd left in another rental car in Vancouver (a long story, but I'd been very angry with Budget for all their hidden charges, so took a stand and returned the car I had hired for a week after just one day, in favour of Enterprise, whose car we took the Rockies trip in).  Apparently they had it at their head office in, guess where, Richmond!   So I tried to find it before we returned our Enterprise car.  But at 3.29pm we still couldn't find it, and with the fuel light flashing dangerously again, the Budget office closing at 3.30 and a plane to catch, we turned around and just took the car back instead.  The very kind Budget guy called us to see what had happened to us as we weren't there, and said he'd arrange to post it back to us.  I felt much better towards Vancouver Budget after this, which is why I haven't written really bad reviews of them on Trip Advisor for their unethical and rip-off charging practices.

And to make my warm feelings towards car rental companies even warmer, Mohamed at Enterprise, Vancouver Airport branch, waived the additional two hours hire fee that I was due to pay for being 2 hours late with the car.   Even after commenting that "wow, you've covered some miles" as he checked the car over.  It was a brand new Mazda 3 with 16km on the clock when we took it, and we returned it at around 1875km.    So we left Vancouver feeling that luck was all going our way.

Which kind of continued at the airport, where we were not charged excess baggage fees - but we were questioned in US customs and immigration, which you go through before leaving Canada!  I hadn't expected that, so hadn't declared our Okanagan apple on the customs form, planning to eat it before we left the airport.  They were understanding of this though, and said we could keep it.  And told me to be thankful it wasn't an orange, as we wouldn't have been allowed to take that through.  There are limits, you know.   And to next time tick the box saying yes, I did have fruit or food product.  Duly noted.  We enjoyed our juicy, crunchy apple in the departure lounge, officially in the US on Canadian soil, as we waited to board our flight to LA.