A Long Visit

Remember a couple of days ago when I told you about running into our friend Dutch at the Lowes? Well, yesterday Denny and I drove the 80 or so miles to their house to visit them and oh what a day we had!

First of all was a tour of their house (no pictures) that Dutch designed and they finished themselves (all three stories including the tongue and groove hardwood ceiling panels on the ceiling--Pat's job). This is the view from their main floor (2nd floor) deck.

Then Pat and I walked down to Lake Koocanusa.

The view to the right was of the Canadian Rockies but the haze was too thick and my picture of that side of the lake didn't turn out well.  At the time, there was only this young lady in view and she had just launched a Sea doo into the lake for her teenage children.  For a Saturday, it was amazingly quiet and unpopulated.

Shortly after we arrived, another old friend of Dutch's showed up from Texas and since Denny, Dutch and Ted are all retired police officers the tales started to fly as did the afternoon.  Pat fed us a delicious lunch of two types of salads, we tasted a new-to-us variety of wine and talked and talked and talked. Afternoon turned to evening and we all drove to the Point of Rocks restaurant where we had a scrumptious prime rib dinner and it was finally time to make the long drive back home. It was one of those perfect days of friendship, talk and laughter where we were so comfortable even though we hadn't seen each other in eight years.  Denny and I look forward to seeing Dutch and Pat again on our next trip through Montana.

Dutch and Pat.

Ted and the view from the deck. Notice the clever use of tempered glass panels in the deck railing which allows you a full view from the deck.

Pat and Dutch in 2002. Here we are having dinner on the Boone, Iowa dinner train. And yes, that is Kong, our 2000 F450 in the background at the station.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, Denny and I met Pat and Dutch while we were all working at Adventureland Amusement park. So here we are: