Regina

Regina
After a VERY long day of driving from Waterton, we crossed some of the prairie to arrive in Regina. The best thing about the drive was a stop at the Zucchini flower café in Medicine hat. This little café off the beaten path (and more off the beaten path because the bridge was closed and the GPS didn’t know it) has a daily changing menu of Panini, pizza, salad, quiche and soup. We shared a salami Panini and a loaded slice of pizza with all kinds of great stuff on it. Both were good but the Panini bread was kind of strange and flavorless and the pizza dough was too doughy. Still, we were happy not to have to eat at a chain and to be somewhere with an atmosphere. The café only has about 8 tables and is located in a little market. I’d go back again. Oh, we also got carrot cake which was actually good even though it had coconut in it.
We had been warned that the drive from Waterton to Winnipeg would be totally flat and boring. But, that’s not so. It’s just a different kind of beauty. I was thinking back to the redwoods and their kind of all encompassing silence and beauty—almost as if you are in a terrarium, then the beauty of the ocean is loud and immense and the beauty of the mountains is like the contrast of the jagged against the sky, and the prairie the prairie is like the vast immenseness of the universe spread before you—where there aren’t any boundaries (more like the ocean). Our bed and breakfast lady, Cathy, said that when you drive West toward the mountains, they make such an impression on you that you miss the more immediate prairie. I think there is something to be said for that explanation in that we often think beauty is in the momentous and not in the small. Now, this may be because beauty IS in the momentous, but I do find the prairie beautiful. The rolling hills, the vastness, the yellow of the Canola plants (I know it would sound better if I wrote the Lillies or roses—Canola sounds a bit crass), the canyons, and, if you do look closely you can see distinct differences in the prairie hills that always spark my curiosity. And, I do find beauty in that which makes me curious as well (not always). We also passed these evaporating ponds with piles of white stuff (mountains of it almost, like great snow drifts). I asked Cathy what those were and she thought they were sodium chloride. I’ve got to look that up and see if that makes sense.
We only saw the suburbs of Regina and they reminded me kind of Chicago’s near suburbs, with small houses and alleys and trim yards in cozy little neighborhoods separate from shopping. Regina also has a series of parks connected through trails along the “river” (read creek or ditch). But the path makes a great place for walks and the trails abut the schools so I imagine it’s great for kids getting to school as well.