The Trickster

Osoyoos is a small town located in the northernmost tip of the Sonoran Desert, in BC, along the borderline between Canada and the US. Now that you have the back story, I’ll begin with mine. Neither Marty nor I had been to Osoyoos, which is about a 3.75 hour drive from our neck of the woods, but with a sweet resort deal and three free days, we decided to make the trip. We didn’t really have a plan, so if the worst that happens is that we sit on our duffs for three days, so be it. But first, we had to get there, so we loaded the car full of Marty’s luggage (or mine…kind of more mine than his), and off we went.

The weather had been fluctuating here and there and…well, we were driving and encountered some…ugh…snow. At least it made the mountains pretty.




Green on the bottom, white at the top – I should be talking about a mouldy marshmallow, but I’m not.

I hadn’t been this far east in BC in nearly seven years – I was feeling nostalgic when we zoomed by Manning Park, where I went backpacking in 2003…gross, I’m getting older again.





Things took a turn when we hit the Okanagan though…the weather turned misty and foggy and awesome. I secretly hoped to spot the Ogopogo in any body of water we passed. I’ve hit wine country!





Okay, enough pictures of mountains and stuff. We did finally make it Osoyoos.



We stayed at the Spirit Ridge Vineyard & Resort in a one-bedroom suite, and we were quite impressed with what we found!











Not to shabbs, hey? The view from the deck wasn’t so great – the golf course and a dry-looking mountain. But…it’s better than the side of a brick building or something! Here’s my 270 (not full-360) panoramic – click to enlarge!



The resort is kind of on the other side of the river from the town, jammed in the middle of a field. Here’s the city view from our resort:



As I had never really spent any measure of time out in the Okanagan, I was baffled my all the different kinds of vegetation. I’m such a nerd.




Cherry blossoms? Strange Osoyoos flowers? Iunno.



And here’s what our resort looked like from a field away:



The pool view from the hallway:



Our first day there was spent exploring the grocery store while trying to determine anything relatively cheap enough to buy for dinner. I chose some potatoes and I boiled them up in my granite-encased kitchen. No big deal. Marty and I watched a great deal of TV, which was facilitated by the fact that we had two flat panels in two different rooms. I watched several episodes of that hoarding show and ‘What Not to Wear’, while surfing the net. Wow we’re lazy.

The next day, we were waiting for the weather to cooperate so we could head out on the kayaks my friend Erika had left out for us at her sweet pad. But first, we decided to head next door to the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre, as I had heard it was great from the reviews on Trip Advisor.





We weren’t quite sure what to expect (I figured museum-ish?), but it was really interactive. There were different tidbits about the Inkameep’s early days, artefacts, and some crazy-sweet theatre shows (more about that later).





This is inside the first theatre, which was inside a pithouse. There was a fake fire, fish inside the walls…the whole nine. It was here we first learned about Coyote, and that he was a trickster! You should totally go.



The rest of the centre was outside…which makes sense since they are a desert people. Cool dioramas follow the snake.













Being out on a hill in the desert, watching the coming storm was kind of rad. Here’s my attempt to capture the ambiance, again, 360-style. (Click to enlarge)


Ah….it’s hard to get Flickr to respect my photo sizes.



At the far end of the dioramas, there was a map of a trail…a sign said it would take about an hour to hike the whole thing, and considering the storm was coming…hmmm….well, since I’m cheap and I like to get every penny of my money’s worth, we decided to do the hike. It was early afternoon and the immediate weather was accommodating. That, and I was prepared, wearing my rain jacket.





There were many treasures along the pathway! Let me present one of them to you:


A red ant hill on some kindling!

The storm continued to loom off in the distance and some droplets fell…but nothing huge. More troddling along.




Christmas Card 2010. But not, really.


More treasures – I know the sign said I should keep my hands to myself, but when I see bones, I can’t help but want to poke at them.







There were so many bones scattered everywhere that I believe we either stumbled upon an ancient burial ground for dinosaurs, or that the Inkameep people love to toss bones around for fun.



WOOT! I’m loving all these stormy pics. So much contrast and anger out in the desert.

The “estimated time” to walk the trail was an ongoing joke. From one mini-site to another, it would say like, 15 minutes and we’d arrive at the site in like, 3, and I’d be confused if we were somehow at the wrong spot. Maybe the Inkameeps walked slower. This is the town site.




It’s a mini sweat lodge! It looks like I caught him in the middle of working.

There were many deer loitering about the town site. There’s four in the picture below, but they are mostly hidden.



The 8-minute walk back to the centre tooks us exactly one minute and 45 seconds.



Okay, this time the storm looks primed to hit, but we’ll be tucked away in the movie theatre inside. We are about to watch the centre’s feature film…and was it amazing!






Every time I glance at this picture, I always think it’s Taylor Lautner in Twilight. LOL

So for serious, the film was a masterpiece that I would watch again in a heartbeat. I don’t think I need to explain how much that should mean. It told the story of the Taylor Lautner girl who was visiting her grandparents on the reserve for summer vacation. She wrote all kinds of emo poems and was generally really surly to her Gramps on the truck ride over and when her Grams greeted her in her monotonous voice (seriously, inflection would be over-acting, I think), all her emo poems flew out the truck window and out into the window. She dramatically proclaimed that her summer was over before it even started. Enthralled yet? So then she learns about San Kalip, the Trickster (who is Coyote in the legends) and he, like, does some stuff I can’t remember but then she starts joining the drum circle because now she’s happy to be on the reserve. The end. So, in conclusion, I’d recommend you see it. Best!

The weather was not cooperating with my plans to kayak at all! We decided to try to take the drive up Anarchist Mountain and wait out the storm. The vantage was pretty.


One direction.


The other. Pfft.

Here’s my Anarchist Mountain panoramic – click to enlarge, as always.



The wind was still pretty brisk, so we headed down by the water to determine if there was any chance at all to kayak.





No dice. BOOOOOO. The weather was pretty chilly and I reasoned that if no one was else was on the water, neither should I be. I don’t want to get swept down into America! They hate me there.

Between visiting the other grocery store in town and watching ‘Made of Honour’, the day was pretty relaxed. OH! But I finally got around to ordering my new camera! I’ve been living for this camera for some time now and soon it would be in my grubby little paws.





But seriously, doesn’t this look like some kind of painting?




The next day, we took in the Easter brunch at Passa Tempo at the resort. It was expensive, but we filled up enough for the whole day – after all, we have a now-six-hour-long ride to get through. Ugh.








I bet this patio’s hoppin’ in the summer.

The ride home was grossly long and boring. We had to drive up to Winfield to pick up a motorcycle frame for my Dad and then head back to the Coquihalla via the connector. More snow and traffic. Ick! But we made it home intact.



So that was our Easter adventure to Osoyoos. I’m late, I know, but I’ll back-date it again. I’m good at that. And if you read this far, maybe you don’t care and are truly interested….HAHA HA HA HA.