Our Trip West - Sorrento

Day 8 - We traveled from Radium to Sorrento with many interesting stops along the way. Our first stop was at Roger's Pass where my couisin Darrel works. He showed us around the visitor centre, a new memorial for an avalanche that occured when the railway was being built (bottome left) and took us on a few hikes. Our first hike was the Rock Gardens, where we hiked through a rock trail looking for hidden symbols. Our second hike, was the Big Cedars where we saw enormous cedar trees towering above us. We even found some very fresh bear poop along the trail. We then made our way to Revelstoke, where we stopped at the Train Musuem and checked out the some model trains, an old steam train and learned about the history of the railroad in the area.

Our journey to Sorrento continued on and our next stop was The Enchanted Forest. It was a beautiful cedar forest filled with enormous trees and every storybook and nursery rhyme character that you could imagine. The kids had a blast in here and loved posing for pictures and exploring all of the displays.

Right beside The Enchanted Forest was the SkyTrek Adventure! There was a kids rope course which was about 10 feet off the ground and took the kids about 30 minutes to complete. They had a blast climbing and maneuvering around the course. Both of them made it through without falling and having to rely on their harness to keep them up!
We finally arrived in Sorrento at Aunty Verna & Uncle Dieter's after an eventful and exciting day! We were now ready for a weekend of R & R!!

Day 9 - Aunty Verna was our official tour guide on Saturday and took us around the area to see some of the sights. We began our tour at the Recline Winery, where we were able to sample some delicious varieties of wine. After that, we headed to Gort's Gouda Cheese Farm to sample and buy some fresh gouda cheese. Cole was not impressed with this part of the tour, as he did NOT like the smell of the cheese. A fresh fruit stand was our next stop, where we paused for an ice cream and bought our fair share of cherries, peaches, nectarines etc. Next stop was Salmon Arm, where we picked up some fresh Bratwurst for supper and toured the harbour where we saw some of the many houseboats found on the Shuswap Lake. We then went for an amazing hike at Margaret Falls through a small canyon. Lots of trees and places to explore. After an amazing supper of Bratwurst, Verna & Dieter took us to the Par 3 Golf Course in their neighbourhood. We all had a great round of golf - Elroy almost had a hole in one, I kept hitting the ball into the gully and Cole was interesting to watch as he had to use Elroy's adult clubs and nearly spun himself into the ground on every shot!!! The evening concluded with a puppet show put on by Mackenzie & Cole and some star gazing on the deck! Another great day!

Day 10 - Today was Aunty Verna's birthday!!! Elroy & Dieter took over breakfast duties and we had a great breakfast on the deck with bacon & eggs and lots of fresh fruit. Mackenzie & Cole decorated a birthday cake for Aunty Verna. (I think there was more icing on the kids than the cake.) Mackenzie Kate received a special gift from Aunty Verna, a framed prayer cross stitch that Grandma Kate had made in the 1940's. Aunty Verna sat down with Mackenzie and wrote a story about Grandma Kate's life. We spent the afternoon lazing around. Cole was busy cleaning his toy 4-wheeler from Dieter and was very happy to help Darrel wash his truck. I think Cole & Darrel were more wet than the truck by the time they were through. We also started a new tradition of "Steak Faspa" which is pretty much steak supper in the middle of the afternoon. After our Steak Faspa we headed to the beach for some swimming. Another great day with family and tomorrow it was time to move on to Jasper.