Flight went well until I did the mag test during the shutdown checklist. Turn key off, go to turn it back on, key snaps off. Uh-oh. There was an AME on the airport, so they fished out the broken key and as luck would have it there was an extra key on the keychain that worked for the ignition too. I'd thought it was only for the baggage door. For a while I thought I was going to have to learn how to hotwire a plane.
While all this is going on, Rob calls to get a taxi. I'd called the day before to confirm there was a cab company in town. There was and the guy said it'd be about $20 or $30 each way. I figured we could likely bum a ride back into town after riding. Back to Rob's phone call, it turns out the only cab was called to take someone to Brandon. Now, who in the fuck takes a cab from Russell to Brandon, I'll never know, but now we're SOL at the airport. Rob explains the situation and the guy who owns the cab says, well, you guys can rent my personal truck for $50. And so we did. He didn't ask for ID, didn't take money up front, just gave us the keys and said leave the money in the glovebox and the keys in the gas filler lid. That's why they call it friendly Manitoba I guess. We didn't even take his truck off roading either. I guess that's the friendly manitoban in me.
After all that, the "resort" they call Asessippi turned out to be pretty good. Couple chair lifts, a very nice chalet/restaurant/pub, etc, terrain parks, halfpipe, etc. The downside is that it's almost all man-made snow and vertical drop is about 400 feet. So, was it worth $500? I guess it's no worse than $100 for a hamburger!
