** videos to follow, editing is time consuming**
Martha has some issues. 1. the fridge doesn't work on electric.
The previous owner told me about it, but not until we were picking it up.. Which was late late at night. When dad was with us at Fort Steele we attempted to repair it, we weren't successful. The attempted quick fix also resulted in us losing the outside cover to access the fridge. Part of the adventure and learning experience right???
Well luckily the fridge slightly works when it's running on propane. Currently all of our fridge food has spoiled, but we are having quite the problem with our chocolate bars melting during the day! So we stopped to top up our propane tank on the way over to Penticton! (Then never even bothered to use it the rest of the trip)
Today's adventure consisted of: Finding a campground that allows dogs, EXTREME jet boarding followed by a "relaxing" float down the canal between Okanagan Lake and Skaha Lake!
After finding a campground to stay at we set up the van for the day, plugged in the A/C and took off on a walk down to the beach to go jet boarding! M and I had gotten another deal on the "Get In the Loop" App which made this little adventure a little cheaper than expected! Score!
Jetboarding was so much fun! It took awhile to get used to being propelled into the air by a stream of water, finding balance was definitely difficult! Once I got the hang of it, it felt just like snowboarding--- through the air! It was really so cool and I wish I could do it over and over again!! After watching the footage from the GoPro, I realize I am not as good as I thought I was at jet boarding. My dives look more like belly flops and I'm significantly closer to the water then I thought I was!
M seemed to grasp the concept/balancing of it wayyyyyy faster then it felt like I did! (Probably her background in snowboarding, and my lack of coordination)
She was especially good at exiting the water after diving! ---I was not so great at this!
We immediately called Dad and raved about how much fun we had!! The jet board simply hooks up to a Sea-Doo and away you go!! We begged him to look into buying one for us to use back home.
After that adventure it was back to the campsite to pack up for our float down the canal! Our campground was conveniently located at the end of the canal so we took a cab to the "Coyote Cruises" entry into the canal. A beautiful Saturday probably wasn't the best time to go to one of Penticton's popular attractions! The place was packed!!
We had left our phones back at the campsite so the only way to get back was to float! We came up with a great system to keep ourselves together while we floated down the canal! The little boat we had bought on the previous trip made a perfect backpack holder, M held on to one strap of the backpack and I held on to the other. Flawless! Tia and Mia were quite used to the floaties by this time so they just relaxed in the sun.
Welllll maybe that's not all true. At the beginning of the float we were just mindlessly floating not paying attention to anyone around us and not looking where we were going. As a result of that we ended up pretty close to the shore and Tia decided to jump ship, she was on M's floatie at the time. M was also holding the GoPro at the time. Being the helpful older sister I am, I opted to laugh at her struggle instead of helping! After all, the water wasn't that deep and Tia (my little Princess) could stand to swim a little. That taught us a valuable lesson, you have to watch where you're going or else you hit the shore or bump into people.
Speaking of people, there was SO many people on the canal that day. It seemed like almost all of them had to say something about Tia and Mia being on the floaties with us.
"Oh they're so cute"
"There's two of them?!"
"Are they related at all"
"How old are they"
"What are their names"
"They're so calm laying on the floatie with you"
"Are you girls twins?"
We heard that series of questions about a million times while we were floating. Not to say I'm not proud of my adorable dogs, but sometimes I consider carrying around a sign with me that answers that series of questions. For some strange reason strangers just like talking to me and M when we are out doing things. Maybe it's a sign that I need to be more friendly 🤔
Anyways, the float was taking forever. We had passed the Half way point and decided to stick it out and float to the end. Then the water slowed down significantly and the wind started working against us!
We'd already been floating for about 3 hours and it looked like we had another 2 hours ahead of us. We ditched the idea of staying together and put the backpack boat on M's floatie, I took Tia and Mia and we began paddling our floaties in an attempt to get to the end faster. An hour later we weren't making much progress and the weeds were really REALLY grossing us out!
We picked about the steepest spot on the bank possible and pulled our floaties out of the water. The only thing to grab on to was some thorny bushes and some pathetic grass that came straight out of the ground if you even looked in its general direction. Awesome.
Tia and Mia went up first, then the floaties, and then M and I. After a few failed attempts we finally got up the bank and proceeded to pack up our floaties and put on our sundresses. About 600 meters from where we got out of the water there was a path and stairs where lots of other people were getting out of the canal. Another valuable lesson: patience.
We strolled along the path beside the canal for about an hour chatting about how we would execute another float next year.
1. we would bring more water and snacks
2. We would get one of the big fancy floaties that you don't have to touch the gross weedy water!
We finally made it to the beach and decided to stop and get some ice cream for the rest of the walk back to the campsite!
Both of us were pretty hungry at this point so we ordered some pizza and sat down on the beach admiring how pretty the lake was with the sun setting over the rolling hills.
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