A little geography lesson about Canada. Canada has 10 provinces…can you name them? OK, there is Newfoundland/Labrador, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. It wasn’t really on my “bucket list” to stay in all the provinces, but I realized that in our travels, we had stayed in all of them but Manitoba.

I, also, realized that this was probably about the closest I would ever get to Manitoba again and it would be a shame not to make the trek to spend a night there, since we were so close. So, recently, one weekend, David and I drove about 5 hours to Roblin, MB, population 1,800. We took Rt 16 along the Saskatchewan prairies, and in winter, there isn’t much to look at. We did pass through a section of the Qu’Appelle Valley in eastern SK. It was nice to have hills and trees to look at. Just across the border was Lake of the Prairie, also called the Assiniboine River, which was full of ice fishing shacks….a great, popular winter pass time.

We arrived about 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon. Since it was the middle of winter, there wasn’t much going on in the small town. There were a couple of bargain basement stores, an IGA and Co-op Grocery store. The restaurants were Subway, Chicken Delight, and the proverbial Chinese restaurant. (It amazes David and me that no matter how small the town might be, there is always a Chinese restaurant. How is it that someone of Chinese decent lands in some small town in the middle of nowhere?) People were rushing about making last minute purchases at the stores before they closed down for the night.

Our stay consisted of eating dinner at Subway, spending the night at the Harvest Moon hotel…along with a group of “tween” ice skaters who ran down the hall all night long to the ice and soda machines. Somewhere in Roblin, there was an ice skating competition….who knew???

So, now, we can say that we have stayed in all of the 10 Canadian provinces….maybe someday we will be able to add the 3 Territories….Nanavut, Yukon and Northwest. However, I think I might wait for warmer weather.