Entering the land of plenty

Today has been a day filled with differing circumstances. It has been overcast and very sunny. It has been terribly cold and nice and warm. We’ve been in high places, and we’ve been in low places. We even doubted whether we were still in Canada!

We started our day still in Harrison Hot Springs, where the promised nice weather still wasn’t there. After a very entertaining, yet mediocre, breakfast which even included glazed potatoes and an non-scrambled scrambled egg, we left for a slight detour on our way to Penticton.

The detour would take us through Manning Provincial Park, and over highway 3, instead of the more straightthrough highway 1. The road conditions on 1 are said to be better, but we took our chances and rode the three.
An awesome choice, as it turned out a few hours later.
Manning Provincial Park is *really* beautiful, and very serene. As the highway is not really busy, the signs informing us about deer on the road actually are there with a purpose: we have seen 5 deer standing on the road today!

We have driven for about 4 hours total, when you don’t take the stops into account. Within these four hours, we passed 3 or 4 passes over mountain-ranges and with every pass the weather became better.
We started off with 16 degrees and really overcast, and went to 29 degrees under a near clear blue sky! Unfortunately for us, the journey also included some near-rainshower and a day-low of 7 degrees! A 22 degree temperature change on 1 day, that is new for us.

The drive is just awesome and takes you from the much wetter seaside to the dryer interior of Canada.
In between are really rich meadows and valleys filled with fruit trees and stands selling everyting from cherries to peaches and from strawberries to hazelnuts. All locally grown and abundantly available.
We are, again, in cherry heaven!

Tomorrow, we are driving our way up to Revelstoke, through Kelowna. A short drive, so plenty of time to walk around!