The Accidental Wine Tourists

For Memorial Day weekend Barb and I decided, about a week or so prior, to go camping.  We’d travelled quite a bit together and even slept in a camper sometimes when we go to Barb’s dad, but technically we’d never been “camping” together before.  So it would be interesting to see what each of us considered to be needed for a camping trip.  This was first tested when we went decided what to live in for this outdoors outing.  We couldn’t afford a 60 foot motor home, but were both happy to find a mid-sized tent at Fred Meyers where I could stand up in the middle and there would plenty of room for a blow up mattress and all of Barb’s luggage.  Hunh? who even takes luggage on a camping trip?

 

We’d also waited until the last minute to decide where to go on our camping trip.  By my method, you drive until you find a quiet clearing in the woods near a creek or lake, you hope it’s public land or a house nearby where you can ask permission, pitch your tent, build a fire pit, put your beer in the water to stay cold, and scrounge wood.  But where’s the bathroom and shower house, Barb asked?  Oh.  We’d need a campground with running water (the kind in a pipe), little staked off areas to keep the big motor homes separate from the riff-raff tent campers, and maybe even a bug truck driving through every few hours spraying toxic fumes.

As we started looking for that type of camping, it turns out Washington state has about a bazillion such places, many of them state parks with campgrounds attached.  It also turns out we were the last residents of the state to know this and plan a camping getaway for Memorial Day weekend.  There were a few first-come, first-serve spots left, but even then we couldn’t get away until Saturday so prospects of being near the water, running or otherwise, seemed slim.

Where to go?  Oregon? Been there a few times.  Idaho? Maybe, but their campgrounds seemed just as overbooked.  What about Canada?  They probably don’t even celebrate our Memorial Day (turns out this is true, the big Canadian spring holiday, Victoria Day, was the prior weekend).  The other advantage, we’d be able to do something besides taste wine all weekend.  Barb wanted something different, and even I admitted after approximately two years of weekend after weekend of wine tourism, something different sounded fun. 

So we looked north.  Vancouver and Victoria seemed nice, but not exactly campgroundy, and a pretty far drive.  Barb found an area just over the border on a pretty straight shot for us that seemed promising.  A nice camping site called NK’Mip on the side of a decent sized lake. NK’Mip is hard to pronounce until you learn to sound out the “En” and “Ka” and the mip is pronounce “Meep”.  So it was settled, a reservation was made on-line, shower houses and even a camp store were promised, and we could drive about 4 hours to “get away from it all”.  Osoyoos here we come.

Some internet research to find the other things to do nearby found… wine.  Lots and lots of wineries.  Barb had randomly picked the only lake in a country of 10 million lakes that was surrounded by vineyards; we’d be in the middle of Canada’s Okanagan Valley, which now that I thought about it I’d read about, totally by accident. BIG SMILE.  “But honey, we’ve already bought a tent and booked the campground.  I promise we’ll do something besides taste wine for three solid days.”  She knew I was lying, but agreed to still go anyway.

You may not know this, but Canada is a whole other country from the United States.  We had passports though and we were even able to find them.  I loaded up the family truckster with the tent, firewood (cherry wood bought during my cherry frenzy of ’09), campsized grill, cooler with hot dogs and fixings, and luggage. Hunh, who even takes luggage when going camping?  

The next big clue for us Canada was a whole other country was the giant fortress across Highway 97 above Oroville.  Maybe these borders have always been this secure, but I knew to be respectful and not joke around when you’re likely in someone’s crosshairs and the agent is wearing a blast vest.  He was cordial but serious and asked a standard list of questions.  Where were we going , how long, where do we work in the U.S., do you have any fruits and vegetables?  No fruit, just fruitwood, and some condiments for our hotdogs.  

“Sir, you can’t bring firewood into Canada.”  Fair enough, we’d give it to someone going the other way in the multitude of campers we saw.

“And you’ll have to discard your onion.”  Bananas from South America are ok, but apparently onions are contraband.  

So we turned around through the maze of gates and asked someone in the parking lot on the U.S. side if they wanted our firewood and onion. Strange looks ensued and we went further south to find a WA state campground.  Once there, there were plenty of open spots, but we were now committed to drinking Canadian wine, so we found someone in need of firewood and onions and headed back north.

 

We made it across on our second try and the weekend ahead was a neat adventure filled with lots of interesting wines, looneys, and more onions.

 I’ll talk about those next time around.