That’s what Richard told me today when it was time to have my shower! I’m not digging this warm shower thing at all since we have full hookups at our RV park and I should be able to take a nice LONG, HOT SHOWER! Something is clearly wrong if we don’t have a ton of free flowing hot water! I asked Richard to call the RV place in Penticton and see if they could get us back in for another spa day for Newman tomorrow to find out why we don’t have hot water! If there are two things we need on this trip it’s HOT WATER and HEAT! As anyone who knows me knows I can’t stand being cold and am not a connoisseur of cold showers!
In the meantime, having full hook ups meant we got to try out our in house washer/dryer combo. It’s quite the set up and when it spins, the entire RV shakes, but it saves us from finding a laundromat in every town and saves $30 on laundry every week. It’s not the most efficient at the drying part of the equation though, but we have an in RV clothes line for that! We left the RV this morning with a load in the machine and a load drying on the line. If we aren’t here it can be as messy as we need it to be, to get the laundry dry!
We decided to venture up to Predator Ridge near Vernon today as we had heard great things about this beautiful golf course community and a dear former colleague of mine and his wife settled here after working at the Bank for many years...so how bad could it be?
We loved Predator Ridge! It was so beautiful with 2 - 18 hole golf courses - The Predator course and The Ridge course. Of course we had to stop in at the pro shop to check out their wares and had a lovely conversation with Brent Mann, the Operations Manager who told us if we were coming through in April next year to give him a call to get out on the course. The real estate was stunning with the views of the golf course, lakes and mountains! We also drove up to the very top of the Ridge, to the Sparkling Hill Resort & Spa for a photo op outside. We understand that this resort which is owned by the Swarovski Crystal family is stunning inside, but unfortunately we didn’t know it at the time, so we didn’t stop in for a visit.
Beautiful vistas of these 2 stunning golf courses.
View from the Sparkling Hill Resort
Richard needed to find a post office so we decided to drive into Vernon which was a quick 10 minute drive north of Predator Ridge resort. While parked outside the main post office in Vernon I noticed a mural painted on the side of the post office building. Since i was curious what was the story behind the mural, I googled “murals Vernon” and sure enough there are many murals painted all over the downtown buildings in Vernon. Being spontaneous and needing a walk, we paid for 30 minutes of parking and set off to find as many murals as we could walk in 30 minutes downtown Vernon! There are apparently 29 works of art which portray the history of Vernon at various points in time in Vernon’s history.
After visiting downtown Vernon it was winery time! We had heard from a very reliable source (a former colleague at the Bank) that we needed to check out Grey Monk and Ex Nihilo which are located in Lake Country near where we are staying, but on the shores of Okanagan Lake.
First stop was Grey Monk where we really loved the 2019 Pinot Gris and the 2017 Gray Monk Odyssey Cabernet Sauvignon. The Cab Sauv reminded us of Chateauneuf du pape so we of course had to buy some! Richard did not like their Chardonnay at all! No oak barrelling on the Chardonnay so we bought the Pinot Gris instead which was a lovely “daily drinker” wine.
Next stop was Ex Nihilo which we really loved! We tasted so many wines there I think we were almost confused by the end of the tasting! (Or maybe we had been over served?) We had an amazing wine sommelier named Laura Freeman (who also lives at Predator Ridge) who shared with us more wine than they usually sample, since we were the only ones in the winery doing a tasting!
At Ex Nihilo we loved a 2018 Merlot, a 2019 Pinot Gris, a Privata 2017 Chardonnay, and a 2019 Vampata rose. I think Newman is becoming an alcoholic on this trip! At least he has a big enough basement to store our B.C. wine as we roll along through this amazing wine country!
I like the murals, they are very nicely done.