Life in a hotel

Over the past year, since we started our monthly trips to Calgary, we've got really good at hotel life. For us the ideal hotel arrangement is a suite with a kitchenette. We spend $40 a day on convenience-style groceries we never buy at home, like "salad kits" and sugary breakfast cereals, but we probably save twice that by not having to eat out. We watch TV -- Discovery Channel for hours on end. This is something we never do at home, but watching in a hotel fills our tank so that we're not tempted at home, and it's novel enough that we enjoy it when we're away. With two double beds and a pull-out, we have a bosy' bed and two girls' beds and nights work fine. We take turns on the limping laptop. We read through the stack of books we always end up buying upon visiting a mega-bookstore.

There aren't that many "suite hotels" that offer family-sized suites at a reasonable price. Most "suite hotels" are actually pricey office-away-from-home suites for solo business travellers. A few of the Clarion group of hotels offer family-sized suites, and in Winnipeg we were lucky enough to stumble across Place Louis Riel, a reasonably-priced downtown all-suite facility with comfy large suites.

The train only runs three times a week, so we have a couple of extra days in Winnipeg before heading west again. I have lots of photos but this silly laptop refuses to receive them, so I will save the posts chronicling our travel adventures for a time when I can include the images too. Stay tuned.