"Where the heck is Moosomin?" you ask.

"Why are you staying in Moosomin?"

More on that later.

Friday was a warm morning as we left Medicine Hat.

_D7A3823 Ranching and grazing lands predominate east of the city.

_D7A3828 The prairies are largely treeless. This scene is near Walsh, Alberta.

_D7A3831 Into Saskatchewan, where we found this great coffee house in downtown Swift Current.

We've learned to get off the main highway to avoid Timmies and get good coffee and lunch.

_D7A3834 This is in the village of Chaplin.

Later that day we stopped in Regina for the night.

Saturday morning we left Regina, after finding a nice breakfast restaurant, surprisingly called Breakfast Bistro.

These included breakfasts offered by most motels are not to my liking. They offer fake eggs and lousy coffee, waffles with fake maple syrup, bland and tasteless pastries, etc.

The weather forecast further east sounded ominous. After a couple hours of driving it began to rain, and then turned into wet snow.

The weather predictions were accurate.

_D7A3837 The snow quickly began to accumulate as we were having a coffee in Moosomin, Saskatchewan. _D7A3840  As you see here, with the deteriorating conditions, we chose to find a hotel room in Moosomin.

Where? Moosomin is about 160 kilometres west of the Manitoba border.

_D7A3847 This photo illustrates why we made the decision to stop here.

The snowfall and the winds continued all night long. We lost power at the motel around midnight. It did not come back on until 9:30 this morning. But we are not going anywhere today. The Trans-Canada highway east from here is closed. The storm has not let up enough to allow the roads to be made safe to travel. The temperature now is 16 degrees below normal for this time of year.

_D7A3861 This is the scene outside our hotel. We have a line of stopped transports as far as the eye can see in both directions on the highway.

So here we sit "enjoying" Best Western's amenities.