Billings trip - last

Billings sits in a valley between a rim of rock on the city's north side, and the Yellowstone River on the south.  According to one of the locals, people golf year round.

      These photos were taken from the Rimrock on the north side of town.  At the seminar, there were only four "students" so we became well-acquainted.  Here's the gang.

  Mike, Clare, Lorrie, Ron (our instructor), and Jim.

In the morning, since class didn't start until 9:00 a.m. and Billings is on Mountain Time, I was up hours before class started.  I roamed the streets and bumped into a fellow UND alumnus.  Bob and his wife Bobbie were great conversationalists.  Better yet, Bob was a fellow Croatian with a wonderful last name, "Zuklic."

   Bob and Bobbie at a local coffee house.

Coming home, I stopped at the Assumption Abbey in Richardton.  It has been refurbished and the results are stunning.

  The Abbey.

      This statue comes from the Abbey's sister parish in Switzerland.  One of the monks told me the wood is covered with many years worth of smoke from devotional candles.  Otherwise, it would be much lighter in color.

  One final stop before leaving Richardton--the fourplex in the photo was our first "home" as a married couple in 1978-79.  We had the basement apartment closest to the fire hydrant.  Pam taught in Hebron (15 miles east) at the time and I commuted to Mott (35 miles south) where I practiced law.  In the summer of '79, we moved to Mott and lived there until 1987 when we moved to Bismarck.