March 4: Taylor's Ticket Tour - Day 10

There are just some days that are too good to be true. I’ve found that many of those days occur when you leave the confines of the Perimeter Highway and head to other parts of Manitoba. That’s when you absolutely, truly believe in the motto on the licence plate.

After spending Day 10 of the 2010 Ticket Tour in Carman and Morden, I can tell you without reservation, that this IS Friendly Manitoba.

I must start, however, by apologizing to Craig Keenan. Craig is the service manager at Medichair Winkler and it was his idea to take part of the tour and head south. It was a great idea and my plan was to meet with the Northland Machinery guys in Carman and then head to Morden, Winkler and Altona.

Well, I’ve had to re-schedule the Winkler/Altona portion of the trip to March 24 or 25. That’s because I ran out of daylight in Carman and Morden. Sorry, Craig, but as you probably know better than anyone, these are the friendliest people on the planet and I just had too many lunches and too much coffee and by 5 o’clock, I was still on the west side of the traffic lights on Highway #3.

We started in Carman, finished our promotional deal with Northland Machinery and then went to lunch at the Carman Golf Club with Les, John and Kyrke from Northland.

By that time, it was early afternoon and I still didn’t know what I was in for.

The first stop in Morden/West Winkler was at Bio-Heat Resources where Steve Alder and the rest of the new owners were about as fun and friendly as it gets. Hope to see them at the ballpark soon.

Then we met Tyler Friesen at Wentworth Ag. Inc., Kevin Bergen at Enns Agri-Sales, a wonderful young woman at Greenvalley Bobcat and the boys at Tektite Manufacturing. Never met nicer people in my life.

Then we went downtown and met up with Brad Collins at Eldon’s Furniture, Lance Derksen at Farm Credit Canada, a lovely young woman at Home Hardware and some tremendous people who work for Rudy Ens at Gaslight Harley-Davidson. I’m embarrassed that it was the first time I’ve ever been to Gaslight Harley. It’s one of the nicest stores I’ve ever seen... anywhere.

After that we visited with John Conroy at Ed’s OK Tire Store in Morden, Andrew Nickel at Little Morden Service, Jerrilyn Peters at Greenvalley Equipment Inc., a nice young woman at Manitoba Hydro Customer Service who said she’d put the ticket package on the coffee room table and then a tremendous young receptionist at PJ Trailers.

At this stage, it was time to head home. But not before stopping in at Ed’s OK Tire Store in Carman, Sperling Industries in Sperling and then at Bestland Agro where we met president Matt Bestland who was an outstanding guy.

All in all, it was a great day and in the end we had a free lunch, a lake full of coffee and we even sold a few mini-packs. We also put 19 more business cards in the draw for that wonderful framed Roman Swiderek print. We’re now at 111 cards in the draw and 20 days to go.

Day 11 of the Tour will be next Tuesday. We’re heading north and west.