It would seem that we're in the final five!

And that we now have a 1 in 5 chance at winning a $10,000 trip to Namibia!

Thanks to all of our facebook fans who voted for us every day! It's now in the hands of the judges.

The contest closed at midnight Eastern Standard Time, so that was 10:00pm our time. Here's how the scores were for the top nine entries...

There's us, in 3rd place!

The rules said that they would announce the five finalists today, and the winner "on or about June 20". But last night, the Namibia Tourism Board facebook page posted an update...

Competition closed! Thanks to all those who entered our Landscape Escape competition. We've seen some pretty sad entries, but luckily one of you will be whisked off to some of the best landscapes in the world - Namibia! Our winner will be announced on Wednesday 19 June. Stay tuned....

So I would expect that we won't hear anything more until Wednesday, but we'll keep you updated if there's anything to announce.

We think we've got a pretty good chance of winning, but we're trying not to get too optimistic. The final five are supposed to be judged...

The Judges will judge each entry based on the following equally weighted judging criteria:

• Adherence to theme

• Photo Relevance

• Originality

• Creativity

Given that the theme was "drab landscape" and you had to post an original photo that illustrates "your most boring view" along with a photo Essay description (not to exceed 50 words), we think we did pretty well.

Here was our entry (for those of you who don't do facebook)...

Drab Landscape!

Drab: Lacking brightness or interest; drearily dull. Landscape: a section of rural scenery, usually extensive, that can be seen from a single viewpoint. This is the middle of Saskatchewan, Canada. We like to explore new places and experience new things. There's not much of that here for miles!

You only had 50 words with which to write your essay description. I know our photo is the best one out of the five finalists for "adherence to theme" and "photo relevance", it's just hard to say how we'll do with "originality" and "creativity". I don't see how the other entries were any more original or creative than ours.

Anyhow, now we wait. Thanks again for putting up with our vote reminders every day. I swear, we will never enter a contest that requires voting again! Yeah, I know...we said that after the Australia contest fiasco last year.

So, what's the plan if we win?

Well, the Namibian Tourism Board would get quite a bit of bang for their buck!

The prize is supposed to be for an eight day (seven night) trip to Namibia. It includes accommodation and ground tours and transportation. The flight leaves from New York City and we would have to make our own way there. That's fine, we haven't been to New York City together since 2000. The trip has to be taken before December 31st.

But we would want to stay longer...like a month or more! On our dime, of course. Hopefully we would be able to work that out with the sponsors.

When we leave here towards the end of September, we would drive to Ottawa and then somehow make our way to Nova Scotia, visiting family in both locations. Then, maybe around October 20, we would fly to New York City to spend a couple of days before flying to Africa! Spend a month or more over there, and then somehow make our way to Mexico and our motorhome, Sherman.

Anyhow, that's the plan! Hopefully it will come together...thanks again to all our facebook fans for making it happen so far!