We started by letting Kimchi, our Hyundai EV, get 20 minutes of free electricity in downtown Penticton. The parking lot is convenient for downtown shopping but it used to be a Chinese neighbourhood nicknamed 'Shanghai Alley'. We were there before most of the 9 AM businesses opened.
Last night, we did walk the Okanagan Lake Park end of town. The city is lucky as it has lakes on both sides. The valley was obviously formed by glacial activity. That occurred about 10,000 years ago. Today, the whole Okanagan is semi-arid and filled with fruit orchards and a half dozen important tourist and retirement cities.
We headed up to connect to Highway 97C to go back over towards the west. However, we thought, as long as we were this far we may as well drive into Kelowna. It is about 16 KM further up the valley. I was surprised by development as it'd been a while since we had visited Kelowna. Lots of condo development had and continues to take place. We drove through the traditional park next to the bridge and saw that the parking spaces were all pay.
Thankfully, we continued along and parked near the Rotary Marsh Park area. The old industrial area is now high-end housing and prime restoration project for the marshlands. It was beautiful.
The remainder of the morning was spent climbing and descending the mountains of Highway 97C to get to Merritt, BC. We charged up and had lunch in their downtown. The shot back to Vancouver down Highway 5 and along Highway 1 from Hope, BC went easily. The car made it easy when we started to hit traffic closer to Vancouver. Stop-and-go traffic is a piece of cake for the adaptive cruise control once I gained trust enough to let it do the work. We got back home at around 4:15. I figure the trip was probably around 880 KM (550 miles). I guess Kimchi is no longer a new vehicle.