Notes from Penticton

After posting last, I was off to Penticton, British Columbia for a regional bridge tournament with bridge partner Alex and his wife Vicki.  For those of you who don't know, Penticton is in the Okanagan, the fruit basket of the province about 4 hours east of Vancouver.  I have never been as fond of the Okanagan as most British Columbians - give me New Jersey any time - but it is close enough to go for a tournament, and Alex was kind enough to volunteer to drive.....

We stayed in a small, family run motel called Black Sea (funnily enough, the family is from Turkey, on the Black Sea), right on Okanagan Lake.  I wouldn't exactly recommend it - the only two rooms on the lake were the ones snagged by Alex for us, and it is otherwise unremarkable - but it did have the virtues of being cheap, clean, and convenient enough to the bridge venue.

Salty's, the current favourite fish and chips joint, ......

.....and Starbucks (for Vicki - as most of you know, I am not a fan)

.....were close by, as were some other local sights...

I wasn't really fond of Salty's either, but Villa Rosa, a rather more up-scale Italian restaurant, did turn my crank - we went back twice.

.....a peach bellini (above) and veal picatta (below)....

.....what's not to like?

That's the good news.  The bad news is that the bridge tournament itself was a disaster.  Not only was their "hospitality" not very hospitable (no free coffee in the A.M., candy bowls empty by noon, "free"gift worth what you paid for it), but we didn't score a single point - master points being, of course, the point of the whole exercise.  

Oh, P.S.  No adult should sit in the back seat of a car for 4 hours, no matter how expensive the car.  They are inherently uncomfortable.  The return trip was broken up, however, by a stop at a great fruit stand.  They had picked the local cherries while we were playing bridge. The stands were full of them, and they were delicious. And Alex is always good company.

My next outing was considerably more successful; notes from San Francisco to follow.