March, 3 2011

View of the day-CaseIH never ceases to come up with unique auction items...more pictures and info to come.

We were up early on Tuesday and off to Valley City for the toy show. Al managed to find some toys that he couldn't live without and Marilyn found some tools that she couldn't live without, and after a quick lap around the displays, we started the trek south.

It was surprising to see how the snow in the fields disappeared for long stretches, then would be piled up again straight across the ditches. The temperatures seemed to take forever to rise, but we finally broke through the wall and were able to finally see them nearing 0ºC. We forged on and after switching drivers a few times, made Grand Island, NE around 8pm.

We were up early and over at the Event Centre to see if we could get in on one of the CaseIH factory tours that had been set up. We had been booked in for Tuesday, but since we didn't get there early enough, we ended up on the waiting list for the Wednesday tour. We were lucky enough to get in on the 10:30am bus, but that meant missing out on one of the combine sessions. The tour was a lot faster than the last time we were there, but it was still informative and we got to see our tour guides from when we were there watching our combine being built.

We took in several sessions and got to catch up with several harvesters...they have almost 900 registered so we were bound to find a few that we knew. After supper and entertainment by a magician/comedian, we went back to the hotel to call it a day. We had covered a lot of miles at the factory, trade show and sessions, so an early night was in order.

Marilyn is celebrating the fact that she can now get the early senior discount...it's her 55th birthday, she shares the day with her sister, Marg who has a few more years to catch up. Marilyn usually gets a pretty good haul with Valentines Day, then our anniversary Feb 23(20 years this year!) then the birthday on March 3, but the new camper has filled all the gift spots...for a while at least.

No jackets needed today...almost spring...