a japanese garden in penticton

On our recent trip to the Okanagan, we stayed for a few days in Penticton. In between countless rounds of miniature golf (on the most landscaped course I have ever seen), i walked through this little japanese garden on the lakefront.

It’s quite pretty. actually, all of Penticton is lovely – it’s bordered by two lakes with gorgeous sandy beaches. The lakes are connected by a channel that people float down on innertubes. There is a thriving mini-industry in airbeds and floating beer coolers. Everyone wanders around in bathing suits and sandy feet, enjoying the sun.

Penticton is famous for (among other things), an Ironman triathlon that is held every August. There are throngs of very fit people running and biking and swimming at all hours of the day and night. Every morning around 6:30, I counted at least 20 people in wetsuits out swimming around the buoys in the lake. The city is populated by sun-wrinkled faces and fierce bodies.

I feel like I’m writing one of those back-to-school essays, “On My Summer Vacation…” My daughter had an unfortunate smash-up on the way out from Vancouver when we stopped at a playground in Princeton (amid signs saying “Please Do Not Feed the Marmots”) and she fell off a teeter-totter.

Luckily, she was already missing her two front teeth.

Shark bark.

happy summer!