Camping at Kentucky-Alleyne Park, BC in our Roadtrek Zion

So just stopping at the Home Cafe in Hope. We've had this craving, or I've had this craving, for some of their pie for the last couple weeks. So stop here, get some pie, and take it on a trip. So it's a Friday afternoon and we haven't made any reservations this weekend, so we decided to wing it. And we're heading over to the Kentucky Alley Provincial Park. We'll be taking the Coquihalla Highway 5 North. So we're in an area called Kentucky Alene Park. Kentucky Lake is just ahead and there's a number of camping spots there. They're all full. We don't have any reservations. This was just sort of a last-minute, see where we end up, sort of trip. This is a small pond that's here and then there's another pond just a little farther that way. And then there's a bigger lake on the other side as well. It's a beautiful spot. Only complaint we have so far is we were virtually attacked by mosquitoes when we got out of the vehicle. But we've put on some repellent and Mickey's just settling precious right now. And then we'll get out and probably get in a little bit of a walk. We're actually camped right here in spot 41. There's Kentucky Lakes down here. Alene Lake where we just saw some ducks is up here. And there's a trail that kind of goes up and around. I don't know if you can see through this. It's a little hard, but there's a number of lakes in this whole area. It's early Saturday morning. We got in here at a campsite last night. We rolled in probably reasonably early, 6-6.30. And one of the first come-for-serve sites. Not the best site, but fairly nice. And it's a nice quiet morning. It rained most of last night. Good news about the rain is it kept away the mosquitoes. There's lots of mosquitoes. The camp hosts were telling us that with the earlier flooding we had this year and heavy rainfall prior to getting warm, it's created great conditions for a lot of mosquitoes. So we can anticipate for the beginning of the summer, I think just about anywhere, to see a lot of mosquitoes. So very nice area. I've got, I don't think you'll be able to see them, but I've got those little ground squirrels, which are the little peeps you hear occasionally, running around me. And Mickey's still sleeping. And we're not too sure what we're going to do today. Whether we'll stay here and maybe go for a paddle and do a walk around some of the lakes. Or whether we'll actually pack up and head in somewhere maybe closer to Karameas or Princeton once again. There's a number of other areas that we'd like to visit around there that we haven't visited. Mosquitoes already out. So stay tuned. All right, Mickey's wisely put on more clothes for breakfast. Long pants and a long sleeve shirt just to... I did it so the mosquitoes don't come underneath my shirt. Even though we have our mosquito, our thermocell mosquito repellent, which actually does seem to work. One person suggested we simply buy some incense, I think it was. And then not only would we have bug repellent, but we'd also have probably the most exotic smelling campsite here at the park. Something we'll look at in the future. Just heading out this morning to do the Kentucky Lake trail, which is about three kilometers around. And we haven't quite decided yet if we're leaving here today or not. We just paid for one night last night and I'm going to talk about it while we do our little walk around the lake and decide what we're going to do. Look at the water, it's so clear. Yeah, look at it. You can see the young trout just ahead of us. This is Kentucky Lake, home to a bazillion mosquitoes. You can see how many minerals were in it when you're on a different angle. Just want to tell you what happened yesterday when we were arriving. We kind of missed the turn off and because we were winging it, obviously, you know, we haven't mapped it out, we haven't planned it out very well. So there was a left turn off of Highway 5A south that we missed and we went quite a ways about maybe 10, maybe 12 kilometers past the turn off. But, you know, it was really kind of a nice miss because the landscape over there was just stunningly beautiful and we probably would have missed that if we hadn't not turned off. But there was a little bit of, how shall we put it? The navigator was not being successful in navigating, so the pilot was feeling agitated. But we figured it out. And we got here in time to get a pretty good spot. The area where we're staying is mostly first-come, first-served. So we can stay, we have the option to stay a little bit longer if we wanted to or move on. We're almost to the end of the lake and look how beautiful the color of the water is again. Gorgeous blue. But not the end of the mosquitoes. That's Indian paintbrush right there. Alpine Look at the mosquitoes. Dear God. We're actually right in their breeding ground. We can't stop or we just get eaten alive. Pretty but buggy. The water looks almost like a tropical beach. That was a nice walk around the lake. Yeah, it's gorgeous. Make a nice run too because if you, I think we'll have done about 5k. The walk itself is about four but from our campsite makes about five. The nice thing too is that it's really quiet and I think we were the only ones on the trail except for a few young people earlier on. So it was really peaceful and nice. So you can see it's almost like, it's not sand, it's almost like limestone. A lot of calcium carbonate in the in the soil. And that's what gives the water I guess such a the interesting color at the in the shallower section. You're so cute. I'm just gonna circle, circle, circle. One more circle. Off for a paddle. We are in our alpaca pack raft on a lane. Hopefully that's the way you pronounce it. A lane lake. And it's just spectacular and gorgeous. And it's nice for me because I don't have to paddle. I'm just sitting here and relaxing and enjoying while Gordon does all the hard work. You get a little bit more sun and there's some blue sky ahead. I don't know if that's going to stay or not. That valley ahead is just beautiful. We drove over there yesterday. Hello deer. Very clear and clean water. So we explored Kentucky Lake by foot and Alene Lake or Alene Lake by boat. And they're both beautiful. Cheers to Kim Paddle. I guess, I don't know if you can see it, but we've like a dog. It's hanging right in front of us. Not afraid at all. Good to have. Very good. I think people feed you, don't they? That's why you come so close. Want some beer? If it crawls up my leg I'm going to scream. So for dinner this evening we have veggie burgers, a nice summer salad with some fresh berries, blueberries and strawberries, and mashed potato with green onions and garlic. The deer is joining us for dinner. Obviously not afraid of people. A friendly resident deer. Yeah it's coming almost. I wouldn't say she's a pet because we don't feed her but she's certainly here a lot. She was just a little bit closer when we were having dinner and now she's visiting us as she has her dinner. and clear skies late in the day but the morning you get a little bit of cloud like we have right now. A lot of mosquitoes unfortunately. Talking to some people yesterday who are here often in July and August. Never any mosquitoes but as we talked about earlier, partly because of the flooding, we've got a lot. Earlier in the year we've got a lot this year. But I've found another use for one of our paddles. It's a mosquito swatter. Seems to work fairly well. You can use it also to swap mosquitoes away from other people. You can see how well it works. Multi-uses. That's what you need when you're camping. Everything has to have more than one use. Our friend the ground squirrel came to say goodbye. He's just picking up any of the little crumbs and things that we had left over from breakfast or something that we wouldn't normally have noticed. We're on our way out from Kentucky Lane Provincial Park. It was a great stay. We stayed a couple nights and it's a beautiful day today. We're still trying to swat some mosquitoes out of our vans. We're now heading on 5A South towards Princeton. We came this way before by mistake a couple days ago. But we can show you the beautiful scenery again with the blue sky in the background. just off of Kerameas, to go to one of the wineries there called Oro Fino. Where were you? White Bridge 2017. Looks like a blend. And I'll try the... Which do you recommend? Which taste? I really love the Old Vines Riesling. I'll try the Chardonnay too. So that's the White Bridge. So it's a creamy blend. Pinot Gris, Muscat, and Riesling. Very good. Wild fermented. So just fermented using the naturally occurring yeast. It's relevant to adding commercial yeast. And then aged in neutral oak barrels. So neutral oak just meaning that they're not giving off any oaky flavors anymore. The barrels have been used a number of times. A vessel, but it does help with mouthfeel of the wine. That's nice. I like that one too. The first vintage was in 2003, but the wine shop opened in 2005. Oh, okay. So one of the first ones in the valley here. So 2016 Chardonnay. Aged in barrel, but again, bolder, more neutral oak barrels. So not too big, rich. Chardonnay, it's nice. This one's nice. I didn't mind it. I usually don't have a Chardonnay, but this one's nice. You have to have it with something very light though. Yeah, it's a little lighter style. Nikki's in the winery. We also had the air conditioning on for our van, our cat. And you can hear it kicked in. Oh, and it just kicked off actually. But you would have heard it just a few seconds ago. Fairly loud. Much quieter outside than it is inside though. Somebody referred to it I think once as like a aircraft carrier. So it's pretty loud inside, but it does a good job. I really enjoyed the visit at Orofino winery. I enjoyed all the wines I tried. I did get the rosé because I'm not a huge fan of rosé. It was very nice. It was a Cabernet Franc blend. And I typically like Cabernet Franc in the red wine. But as a rosé, it was fine. I mean, I think a lot of people who enjoy rosés would like it a lot, but I'm not a huge rosé fan. So I'm either strictly white or strictly red. And I got a red blend, which was really nice as well. The white blend that I tried was also very nice. It had Pinot Gris and Muscat and something else. And that was really nice, actually. I really enjoyed that. And I also got a Pinot Gris. Although I didn't get a chance to try it, it wasn't on the tasting list. I really enjoyed Pinot Gris, so I had to get a bottle of that. And then there was, finally, I got a bottle of a Petit Bordeaux. I've tried Petit Bordeaux before. It's a beautiful grape. So even though I didn't get a chance to try it, I decided to buy a bottle anyway and give it a shot.