Day 40 - UBC Okanagan

Hello friends, today I visited the last Engineering school on my trip, and it's quite a bitter sweet feeling given how much I've poured into this trip. We left Burnaby this morning, and on our way to Kelowna we made a bunch of pretty fantastic stops.

We had breakfast at a place in Mission BC called Rocko's Diner, which is the location that was used in the filming of the TV show "Riverdale", which was pretty cool. Vanessa loves the show, so she was excited the entire time that we were there. I ordered the pancakes thinking it would be something light, only to realize that I ordered 3 pancakes that were over 1/2 a foot in diameter and about an inch thick. I was only able to eat one of them, and I didn't even have space to order one of their famous milkshakes (they had over 20 different flavours), which was a shame. Our next stop was in Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park where we went to visit the Othello Tunnels, which are a set of really cool railway tunnels which cut through some solid granite mountains by the Coquihalla River that have been turned into a hiking trail. The rock formations there were unlike anything I had ever seen, and the flowing river added to the beauty of the hiking trail.

We finally made it to Kelowna and got to the University of British Columbia - Okanagan Campus (UBCO). The funny thing with getting to UBCO today is that months before my trip even started, I was telling people that I was thinking of doing this trip in roughly 40 days, and on day 40 I actually managed to visit the final school on my list, which was such a nice coincidence. Anyways, UBCO was definitely a great way to end the trip, as their campus is just so beautiful, and is up there among my favourite campuses. We managed to get there on the Convocation day, so it was pretty funny walking around in my covies as everyone else was dressed really nicely. UBCO only offers three of the traditional Engineering programs (Mechanical, Civil, and Electrical), and the first 3 terms are general for all students, and they start to specialize from the 4th terms onwards. The School of Engineering is located in the Engineering, Management and Education (EME) Building, which had a very modern aesthetic to it and is apparently the main hub for study space on campus. They had a mini Engineering Cairn by the main door of the building, and a HUGE one just on the outside of the building. The UBCO EngSoc office is also located in that building, but was unfortunately closed for the summer. We continued walking around campus and saw that there was a rainbow staircase by the University Centre, so we couldn't not take a picture with it. One thing that I can't forget to mention is that UBCO is on a mountain, and so you can see a beautiful view no matter where you are on campus. Also, the campus is a <5 drive from the airport, which is just oddly convenient. Couldn't have asked for a better way to end my journey through Canada's Engineering schools.

We are going to be spending the night in Revelstoke with Vanessa's cousin Michelle, so on our way there we decided to stop by a monument commemorating the "Last Spike" that was driven into the Canadian Pacific Railway. It was so cool to see such an important piece of Canadian history, and even though it was such a small part of my day, it's things like this that just add so much to my trip. When we got to Revelstoke, Vanessa and I had some dinner that Michelle had made, and then we all ate some cake in celebration of Vanessa's birthday. Today was another great day on my trip, with a mixture of emotions about starting to make my way home. Tomorrow we hit the road with the goal of getting home in the next 3 days, with our first stop on this ambitious venture being in Regina, SK!

UBC Okanagan: www.instagram.com/p/BjyzJmUFNyS