The Okanagan

We are off on a road trip. We have always wanted to go for a road trip into the mountains. So we decided to make it a visiting holiday and kill a few birds with one stone. Dean also wanted to do some rock collecting in the mountains. We researched some good rock collecting sites and found an opal mine near Vernon. Well that is right where my aunt and uncle and cousins live. I haven't seen my cousins in 28 years. I called my aunt and asked if we could come for a visit and stay with them for a few days. Of course they said sure. So here we are in the Okanagan valley.
We drove through the states and stopped a couple of nights and meandered through the mountains. We got to the valley and stopped a few times to do some wine tasting. They have some excellent wines all through the valley. We also stopped along the way to find some rocks but so far didn't find anything that great.
Another fun thing we did is go on a train ride through the mountains on an old steam engine. It was the kids and my first ride on a real train. It was fun but I'm not sure how far I would want to go on a bumpy train.
We also have never picked bing cherries off a tree. We are here at the very beginning of cherry season. We stopped at a U pick cherry place and had lots of fun picking cherries and eating cherries. Mmmmm.