A staycation is where you stay at home and do the activities you might do if you vacated your home and went elsewhere. People come from around the world to visit our valley and many locals stay put and bask in the area’s offerings.
Over the years our family has enjoyed many “100 mile vacations” in this area. One of my favourite places to visit was Sugar Lake. It is easy to get to: drive to Cherryville, take a left at the store, and keep going until you reach Sugar Lake. What I loved about being there was the natural beauty and how few people were there. We camped at the forestry sites, a few times and then twice stayed in the paid camp site and rented a cabin. There is a new development there now.
We would rent a small boat and go out exploring the lake and trying our hand at fishing, not so great at that, better at bird watching. A small pair of binoculars that a child can manipulate can provide a lot of pleasure and entertainment for them as they look for birds, fish, bears, all sorts of wildlife. We always took them on camping and hiking trips.
One summer our site was at the back of the campground and we had a ridge where we made a lean-to. That was such a great time; it was a stinking hot weekend, and the boys stayed cool and out of the sun playing in the woods, imagining themselves to be all kinds of characters living in the forest. We also brought a bunch of Tonka toys which are also fun at campsites for playing in the abundance of dirt.
We went up to Rainbow Falls which is an easy hike in from the parking lot, which also is the entrance to the hike for Spectrum Lake, another great adventure. We hiked in and stayed overnight.
There are many great waterfalls in our region — Wells Gray Park has three we visited that were amazing. Very powerful force water and captivating in many ways.
As the neurotic mother, fearing for my kids’ safety at the same time wanting them to explore, it was a bit trying, as the fear side and adventure side in my brain battled forces. My oldest at one point told me I was driving him crazy with my over-protectiveness, and that he would be safe and just wanted to explore. He was very nimble on rocks and still is, so cautiously I let him go, and he of course was fine.
If you teach your kids to be safe, cautious and thoughtful you have to let them test it. I didn’t ignore them but I didn’t need to hover and make him nervous with my constant reminder to stay away from the edge, which he was anyway. Kids can get distracted easily and that is what we fear.
I could be a helicopter parent and hover over the boys. Yet I was a child who at the age of 11 used to go on 25-mile bike rides around our town visiting other small communities. Stopping for food at people’s houses I knew and then carrying on. I would be with a friend but I wouldn’t have told my parents where I was going because we just left in the morning after chores and came back for dinner, hungry, exhausted and full of stories.
I drove in a car with no seat belts, with eight of us in the back seat piled on top of each other, never wore a helmet biking, or roller skating, and in the winter bumper- jumped cars to get to school faster. Hardly a role model for safety. I survived and my boys needed those chances too but with helmets, seatbelts, and there was no way they were bumper jumping!
There are so many great places to explore around our area. Another family favourite is floating down the Enderby river, getting in at the bridge and then floating down to the public beach, enjoying lunch at the cafe by the bridge.
Another time we kayaked towards Mabel Lake getting in further up and saw a bear on the shoreline, an eagle and no one else on the river during our three-hour adventure.
Wine tours, brewery tours, gardens like the Okanagan Lavender Herb Farm, Davison Orchards, Elysium Gardens, Okanagan Serenity Gardens in Kelowna are all fun ways to spend a day or a weekend.
Ellison Park is a place we had hours of enjoyment, numerous day trips with a picnic and loads of fun rock scrambling, swimming, hiking. It has a marine dive park where you can snorkel or scuba. This is where my son taught me to rock climb and I will never look at that rock face with fear again.
These are days and nights that are memory makers, the adventures that fill our story banks with great tales of fun, perhaps chaos and camaraderie. We are fortunate to live here and it doesn’t cost a great deal to explore so many parks, lakes, or just go for a lovely drive. When I grow up and get my next sports car there are some wonderful winding roads that I am going to explore.
And don’t forget to spend time reading and may I recommend Rod Power’s Shadow of Light, it is an excellent story!
We are lucky that as Canadians our hearty stock doesn’t let a little set-back like rainy weather stop us from being explorers.
Michele Blais is a longtime contributor to The Morning Star who writes bi-weekly on a variety of issues.
