I live in Kelowna, B.C., Canada. It's possibly one of the most beautiful places in the world, with gorgeous mountains rising up around a series of lakes providing almost every kind of outdoor activity and adventure imaginable. If somebody ever figures out how to create a surf on the lake, we will truly have it all.
So why do I spend almost the entire two months of the summer somewhere else? Apparently the bounty of recreation we have up here has come to the attention of other people. Our town almost literally doubles in size during the summer, and we really don't have the infrastructure to support it. That's not meant to be a knock on our city planners. There's no point spending an insane amount of money on things that you are only going to need for two months of the year. Our town handles September to June pretty well, so about all you can do is hang on because the summer is going to get crazy.
So instead, we head off to other places that are designed to handle the crowds. When twenty thousand people come up to a festival to drink and party in Kelowna, it's a major event that requires a ton of extra policing, and an immense amount of patience if you want to do anything else in the city. When twenty thousand people go to Vegas to drink and party, it's called Monday. Same with Los Angeles (except July 16/17th while they close the 405. Jeff Davis has already coined the phrase "Grid#*ck" for that weekend.). Phoenix is even better. Nobody goes to Phoenix in the summer. Sure, it's hot, but they're equipped to deal with it, and the prices on everything are rock bottom.
So next week we'll head off for another summer of travel. I surrender my town to those who want to spend their summer on the lake, which might be the only way to get in to town as the bridge will surely be at a standstill.
