Skydiving business moving to Oliver for 3 weeks
Vernon’s loss is Oliver’s gain. At least it is where skydiving is involved over the next three weeks. Okanagan Skydive usually operates out of Vernon Airport.
However, some improvements being done at that airport mean the skydiving operation has been ousted.
So, from Aug. 11-18 Okanagan Skydive will make its home at Oliver Airport.
On Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays it will offer tandem and recreational skydives from a plane flying at 10,000 feet.
Tandem dives are ideal for first-time skydivers because you get a brief training session and then jump out of a plane strapped to an instructor for a safe and exhilerating descent.
The first 40 seconds are an adrenalin-inducing freefall followed by a serene five-minute parachute back down to Earth.
A tandem jump experience starts at $269 per person.
Aerial photos and videos are extra and start at $139 per person.
Check out OkanaganSkydive.com.
Spirited
Okanagan Spirits has made friends with an airline.
A partnership between the distillery and Pacific Coastal Airlines sees a coupon attached to boarding passes.
The voucher is good for free tastings at Okanagan Spirits’ bars in Vernon and Kelowna and $5 off your first cocktail.
The mixed drinks made of the distillery’s spirits and liqueurs are regularly priced from $8 to $12.
The coupon is also a ballot that can be filled out to win two return flights anywhere Pacific Coastal flies or get discounts on flights.
The airline operates between Kelowna and Victoria and Cranbrook and also links 62 other B.C. communities, including Vancouver, Prince George, Campbell river and Bella Bella.
Okanagan Spirits has also launched a Farm-to-Flask initiative urging local restaurants and bars to exclusively stock locally-made spirits.
The first four establishments to take the distillery up on the offer are Raudz and Micro in Kelowna, Predator Ridge Golf Course near Vernon and Terrafina at Hester Creek Winery.
Okanagan Spirits makes the case it’s easy to switch to all-premium, small-batch, local spirits from the mass-produced liquors of multinational conglomerates.
Okanagan Spirits makes a range of gin, bourbon, whisky, vodka, brandy, absinthe, aquavit and liqueurs.
It’s cocktail of the week is the blackberry bramble.
Shake two ounces of gin with an ounce of lemon juice and half-an-ounce of simple syrup.
Pour in a glass of crushed ice, drizzle with blackberry liqueur and garnish with fresh blackberries.
On the job at 70
Are you ready and willing to stay on the job until you are 70?
The World Economic Forum is warning workers may have no choice but to work longer in order to preserve pensions and employer-sponsored health benefit plans.
The standard retirement age is 65, but many quit work before that if they have savings.
However, there’s also the trend of employees staying on past 65 because they enjoy their jobs and/or find retirement is not all it’s cracked up to be.