Yes… they celebrate Thanksgiving north of the 49th, on the second Monday of October (?). From what I saw in the grocery stores, typically Canadians celebrate with a traditional dinner of turkey and accompaniments (typical for US Thanksgivings, anyway), and there are two football games on tv (well, CFL games are almost like football, they could probably all beat the Bucs)…
But, who am I to mock and disparage, the weather was good and Emily and I had a three day weekend.. woohoo!!!
What to do..What to do…What to do..
We chose a road trip to Penticton in the Okanagan Valley for a weekend of camping in sub-zero temperatures, rock climbing at Skaha Bluffs, and wine tasting in the evenings. We took our cross bikes in case my broken ribs didn’t allow me to climb, and if we couldn’t ride, wine tasting could become an all day activity instead of just late in the afternoon.
Orange gourds on the ground as we headed out of town
The drive out took us through Hope and then up into Manning Provincial Park along the Similkameen River. Fall colors were on full display, oranges, reds, greens, from the deciduous trees nestled among the evergreens; the underlying (and massively overreaching) geography was equally impressive.. and in this area, I had an advantage..the book of Roadside Geology of Southern BC, and Emily’s ability to coax correct pronunciations from my mispronunciations, and her patient interpretations, identifications, and explanations and “general ramblings about all things geological.”
The massive Hope Slide
Hedley Mascot Mine buildings perched precariously high on the slopes of Nickel Plate mountain.
One of Emily’s favorite rock outcrops..
The rising sun behind us on a well-travelled path
A weekend of rock climbing firsts for Emily
Emily’s first lead up Autumn Gold
cleaning the anchors at the top of the route, she wasn’t keen on disconnecting the rope from her harness
weighting (and trusting) the daisy chain. (doesn’t she look convinced?)
rapping down as if she has been doing it every weekend since leaving Oklahoma
We had wonderful weather throughout the weekend (largely meaning that it was dry)…
We searched out faces with exposure to the sun
despite being in the sun, belaying in puffies was the norm during the mornings (yes, she’s leading another route, she climbed more routes than I did 
Smiling, happy people holding hands (and wearing puffies) in Fern Gully
concentrating on Lichen in my Belly Button
Beauty in the late afternoon sun
Just what the Ph.D ordered after a day of climbing.. vineyards at Therapy: really good whites, blah reds.. and we really wanted to like the Ego series..
remaining grapes at Zero Balance (which had wonderful reds)
Despite our proclivity to drink an entire bottle of wine in one sitting, without glasses, I was assured that we don’t have a drinking problem and we have empirical data to that effect: we bought eight bottles of wine, and only drank two of them…
and, what did we do for our Thanksgiving meal? Start a new tradition..Frito Pie
p.s. a weekend of climbing on real rocks has allowed Emily to rise from her recent plateau in the climbing gym.. she’s now climbing tens without pause.
Sounds like a blast!