Kelowna

The Kelowna waterfront is touristy but nice. The lake is beautiful and sparkly. Beyond the waterfront the downtown is old and beat-up, but interspersed with high-rise condos and older buildings repurposed into restaurants and brewpubs, all of which looks very new. There are a fair number of small old houses for sale as teardowns.

Kelowna Waterfront

And there’s a curling club, which I believe is some sort of national requirement.

Kelowna Curling Club

Alcalde was right about the saison at the Red Bird brewery. It’s not too tart the way some of them are. I’ve had four or five saisons in my life, so I think I’m something of an expert.

I’m staying in the Hotel Zed on the waterfront, which is a ridiculously fun, unpretentious hotel that looks damn good on your Instagram, it says here. They’ve basically taken an old motel and fixed it up with flashy, retro decor. They have rotary phones in the rooms, plus instructions on how to use them. I don’t have an Instagram account, so I’ll have to put the pictures here.

When I arrived on Sunday afternoon, it was sunny and hot and there were pscrillions of tourists. On Monday morning it was a lot cooler and there was hardly anyone around except for the street people. I promenaded on the promenade and bought an Ogopogo sweatshirt.

There are surprisingly few Ogopogo-themed items for sale. Even Ogopogo Giftland had only two choices. Shockingly, the visitor’s centre had nothing on the Ogopogo at all! It was as if he doesn’t even exist!