Ogden-Thompson-Burke Weekend 2018

Arnie and Rob are two of my oldest friends that I still have regular contact with. We've known each other since Kindergarten. Arnie lives in San Francisco with his wife, Haley. Robba lives here in town and recently retired...so we hate him.

A month ago, Arnie e-mailed to Rob and I and said that he and Haley are planning a trip to Spokane where we will all go out to Rob's lake place and enjoy a long weekend together.

So we planned and worked the numbers and set this past weekend for the festivities. We would all go up on Friday morning and stay until Sunday afternoon.

Rob has a great lake cabin at Coeur d'Alene lake that his Dad built in the 60's. It's very comfortable and sleeps about 90 people. It has all the comforts of home except TV and the Interwebs. TV is available if you have a DVD.

So the stage is set for our wonderful weekend.

Arnie and Haley flew in to town about 7PM on Wednesday. I picked them up and brought them back to the house where Susan was preparing a lovely dinner.

We sat around and ate and drank and chatted but we were all in bed by ten.

I had to work on Thursday and so did Susan. So I left my car behind for Arnie and Haley to go out and adventure around the area.

Thursday night was a trip to Spokane Indians Baseball. They won!

Friday morning we had a leisurely breakfast and finally got around to heading for the lake around noon...with a stop at the Hub.

We arrived at the lake about 1:00. We got ourselves unloaded and into our rooms and then set out for the dock. Many beers were consumed while we sat on the dock and occasionally jumped in the water.

At 5:00, we went up for cocktail hour. Rob made margaritas and we prepped a fabulous dinner. The drinking continued into the evening as the sun set and darkness enveloped the deck.

Our wives all went off to bed about 10:00 and that left the boys and a bottle of whiskey all to ourselves.

At some point, I believe Rob said, "Let's go skinny dipping." Without a thought, we threw off our clothes and dashed down to the dock and jumped in. It was fabulous!

To get back to the cabin, one must climb a long flight of stairs.

It begins here.

As we stumbled back up to the cabin, I climbed up on hands and feet to just short of that bench. Then I lost my balance and rolled to the right. That vegetation at the top of the wall is a thorny bush. I rolled my naked body right through that bush and six feet down to the beach...landing on my ass.

Here is the scene of that bench the next morning. I sat there for quite a while. I finally hiked up to the cabin, leaving a small trail of blood all the up.

I have a series of many scratches from just under my left armpit, wrapping around to my butt and on down my legs.

It was a wonderful weekend.