At Dave's would be the Bar-B-Que. 

"What a marvelous sounding time!"  I said aloud as I drove through the torrential rain, "Pretty soon me and Smitty will be on the road for a 175-mile ride on our way to meet new friends, rekindle some old ones and drink all the free beer we could handle."

Later, in our hotel room, Steve and me discovered how totally inept Smitty is at handling free beer.

Now, the two Dave's live about 20 minutes apart; one in Post Falls and the other in Washington. I had seen their shops in the past and at that time both were in various forms of disarray and for certain no equipment or any shop furnishings were hardly in place.

That was then.

Before I go much further I gotta back up a second to tell you something important.  Prior to leaving the house I called Steve Bigelow to tell him we'd be in the Howard Johnson Inn.  From the sound of his voice I could tell he was excited about the trip and for the chance to meet all of us and that's when he began detailing to me how he had his rig all packed and that he had remembered "absolutely everything" and was ready to head out.

"Super!  What're you bringing along, Steve?"

"Weellllll, I got my laptop - you know I can't leave my kitchen let alone my driveway without that - what with me being a computer nerd 'n all!  I'm also packing my external hard drive that can plug into anything on the planet; I even have an adapter that can plug into a blender!"

"Ugh huh...what about your I-can-do-everything-but-fry-eggs iPhone?"

"Ohh yeah, sure, but I've got it doing that now..."  He drug 'that' out a little longer than necessary.  "...took a little bit of time to work out."

"I 'spect it did.  I can hardly wait to see it.  Say, you didn't forget your ballistic flare gun and the emergency camp stove, did 'ya?"

I could just see him huffing up, "They in the back, right beside my plug-in cooler!"

"What about some military MREs - if you get stuck on a high pass you..."

"Got 'em."

"What about a baseball bat in case there are wolves or hoodlums about?"

"Yep, aluminum...don't want it snapping off when I start swingin' it, now do I?"

"No, that'd be right disappointing, for sure?  Ohh, what if you get to some high..."

"I got my inflatable raft and collapsible, aluminum-shafted paddle in there, too.  As I said, Joe, I thought of everything!"

"Well, it certainly sounds like it, Steve."

"What are you bringing, Joe?"

"Smitty."

"But what about the wolves or hoodlums?"

"I'll give them Smitty."

"What about high..."

"I'll float on Smitty."

"What about if you get stuck on a...."

"Smitty.  Ever hear of the Donner Party?  I ain't against cannibalism, Steve.  We'll see ya there."

We were about  twenty miles outside of Post Falls when it occurred to me that I should give Smitty's cell number to Steve in case mine died or somehow got crushed.

Rrriiinnngggg.

"What the Hell are you bothering me for now?"  He sounded irritated.

"Nothing truly important, Steve.  I just thought I'd give you Smitty's cell number.  You sound irritated, did I catch you in the bathroom again, Steve?  Hey, why do you take a phone in there with you anyway if it annoys ya to answer it?"

"It ain't that...I just realized I forgot to make a room reservation and now all the rooms are taken."

I snickered.   "Well, look at the bright side, Steve, you thought of everything else though, didn't ya?  I mean, here I am I'm a Boy Scout and I don't have a ballistic flare gun."

"Thanks.  I guess I'll, ugghhh...I'll just take my sleeping bag and inflate the raft and sleep in that.  Is there a park or something nearby?"

"Steve, you'll just bunk with us, I'm sure Smitty won't mind.  Plus, what if it comes up a nice rain, I'd hate to think about you waking up and finding yourself floating toward the Spokane River.  We're in room 246.  Bye."

Smitty and I arrived at the hotel, checked in with a pretty buxom ladened lady at the front desk and up to our room we go.  I opened the door, set the stuff I was carrying down and headed back to the car for another load.  I get back and there's Smitty standing in the middle of the floor only he's moving in circles and banging on his head like an Autistic.  "What's up, Rainman?"  I asked.

"Look at this,"  He said pointing, "There's a T-shirt on the floor, there's money here and there's two bottles of half-drunk pop over there and over there is a spare mattress on the floor!  Are these people coming back?"

"Now, that's just plumb weird."  I said,  "Here we are in our room with a third bed already on the floor for Steve and I didn't even make arrangements for it.  I am clairvoyant!"

It looked like whoever was in the room before us had made the room up themselves.  Smitty got on the phone and called housekeeping and when they came up they were at a loss to explain what was found and why the room wasn't cleaned.  They took the money...all 24 cents of it and I told them to leave the mattress lying there since Steve wouldn't be arriving until Saturday morning, which made them right happy.

Dave told me earlier he was leaving at dusk to attend a Billy Graham concert so that left me and Smitty to run around town by ourselves.  The first order of business for us was to find a decent place to drink beer and eat so I handed Smitty the phone, "Here, call Dave and ask him before he leaves to go see Uncle Bill to get healed.  I need to set up the laptop and check my Email."  So, now I'm sitting at the table busy doing that and presently I hear...

"Hey, Dave, it's me, Smitty.  Huh?  Naw, thanks, I just stopped in Wallace for a couple hours so I don't think it'd be appropriate for me to attend a Billy Graham concert.  Hey, we need to drink some beer and grab a bite to eat.  Got any suggestions?"  Ugghhh, huh, yeah...Ok.  Where is it?  Yeah...ugghhh, huh, Ok.  See ya tomorrow, bye."

"Alright!  Let's go!"  Smitty says, and we're back in the car.  Three hours later I look over at Smitty, "Where did he say this place was again?"

"I dunno, he just said to keep going down this road and it'd be on the right."

The name of the place is Capone's.  The minute we arrived in Post Falls we passed 65 restaurants on the way to the hotel but Dave is sending us to Capone's, which is almost back in Missoula, because it has a gazillion beers on tap, the pizza is primo and the sammiches would make you turn to a life of crime'.  I couldn't stand being in jail 5 minutes let alone for an extended stay so we ended up ordering a pizza.  As for the tap beer?  They had something like forty-two of them!  It was heaven!  We had a better than average good time and we're back in the car again.

I can't quite put my finger on it but there's something about Smitty being really nervous when he's riding in an automobile.  There I'd be, driving along looking over at that and over there at something else and pretty soon he's yelling, "STOP LIGHT!"  Or, "CAR!"  Or, "PEDESTRIAN!"  Dumb things like that.

"Ohh, Smitty, take it easy, I got this well-in-hand."  So, I ignored him and continued driving and looking about.  Pretty soon the phone rings..."Hey Dave!  What's up?  Did Billy-Boy make ya all better?"

"Joe,"  He said, with clear desperation in his voice, "I just heard on the news where some lunatic is driving the wrong way on the freeway!  Be careful!"

"Dave..."  I said mildly, "I want you to call that news station and tell that guy if he ever expects to become a good reporter that he needs to get his facts straight.  There ain't just one, there's hundreds of them!"

We get back to the hotel and Smitty's car door is still swinging shut as he flops down on his hands and knees and kisses the ground.  I laughed raucously as I watched him performing the silly deed.

"Yooouuu..."  He yelled then pointed at me, "...are evil and you should be destroyed!"

"C'mon, Smitty,"  I said, looking around the parking lot, "Get up, you look like a Muslim down there - even if you were you'd make a poor one b'cuz the Sun went down hours ago.  Anyway, I don't know what you were so scared about,  I was clear on the other side of the tracks by the time we got over that crossing so that train had plenty of room."

Apparently Smitty doesn't care much for trains, either.

Come the morn, we made the twelve-mile drive from Post Falls to 2Dave's shop in Washington to find we were the first ones to arrive.  I didn't get to meet his wife or daughter the last time I was there but on this morning it was a real pleasure.  Sami, his daughter, looks like, acts like, speaks like Reese Witherspoon so as far as I was concerned we were in the company of a celebrity.

After pleasantries were exchanged 2Dave led us up a nice sidewalk to his shops.  Yes, there are two; the old and the new.  The old one is now a storage building.  Come to think on it, the last time I saw it it was a storage building only it had tools in it.  It's like Dave told me, "You have to go outside to turn around."  The new one, however, is a complete one-hundred and eighty degree switch.  Lots of room, plenty of storage and gobs of eye candy and he has every right in the World to be proud of his accomplishments.  In fact, his shop would impress Garrett Hack.

Soon, the guests began arriving and we got to meet some really nice people.  It has always been my belief that woodworkers are the nicest people you could ever expect to meet and it came to pass that with every one we met my belief became more solidified.  We met guys and gals from all over the northwest; Oregon, Washington and Idaho and, in turn, they got to meet an exceptionally impressionable pair from Montana.  They all brought something; something to sell, something to give away but what each of them brought collectively was friendship.  There was wood, tools, ideas, helpful information...it was all there.

We whiled away a delightful three hours at 2Dave's then everyone caravaned back to Post Falls and to Dave's shop.

Dave is a person who, even in a crowd, you can't help but gravitate to.  He's just like 2Dave in that he has an enormous laugh and an enormous ability to make you feel comfortable just being around him and, although he can't Bar-B-Que worth a damn, he's a fine host.  He was humbled to see so many of us ogling and fondling his shop furnishings and doodads.

"Say, Dave,"  I said after opening a drawer to find a brand new dado blade set, picked it up and waved it in the air. "I betcha bought this just yesterday and stuck it in here to impress us din't ya?  It's a cheap set by the way, you should'a gotten the Freud."

"Shut up, Joe!"

Dave doesn't hold much stock on constructive criticism.

Dave's shop has everything you can expect to find in a well-equipped shop.  His workbench is something a crowd of woodworkers would be envious over and his RAS and CMS cutting stations are a work of love.  The potty, however, is something you have to learn to appreciate.  If you aren't paying attention and you open the door to leave, you have every expectation to trip on the step-up and fall head long out onto the shop floor.  I even said so...

"Uggh...Dave, this is quite the tripping block you have here, doncha think?"

"Hey!  If that happens I don't charge any extra!  They don't have any business being in there doing their business anyway - they should have done that before they got here!"

"Not when you're serving beer, Dave."

The party afterwards carried onward long after night had settled in and it was then me and Steve discovered Smitty's inability to adequately handle free beer.  Dave had a keg of Old Brown Hag, a cooler full of bottles of Pull My Finger and various other micro brews and all of them were very tasty.  Smitty spent the better part of that late afternoon and clear through the night tasting all of them in great abundance.  When we got back to the hotel room the three of us sat down to talk about our day, about the new friends we made and, of all things, my flashlight.

See, the previous day Smitty and me visited Cabella's, which is a sportsman's paradise.  I'm not much of a sportsman.  I don't hunt but I do enjoy fishing and at the same time I'm not obsessive about it.  Frankly, if someone stole all of my fishing gear tomorrow it wouldn't bother me in the least because I only have one fishing pole and a small plastic box that contains a bunch of knotted up, rusty lures.  Whether or not you're a sportsman you owe it to yourself to go in and take a look around because the displays in there are absolutely amazing but the main reason I wanted to go there was to return a flashlight I had gotten there almost a year previous.

Returning something to Cabella's is like waiting for the second coming of Christ - it seems like it'll never happen and I stood in line for a good hour while waiting for my chance to stand in front of someone at what appeared to me to be a well-staffed customer service counter.

"What's wrong with it?"  The pretty girl asked.

"It doesn't  work."

"Whadya do to it?"

"I ran over it with my car.  C'mon, I didn't do anything, I merely tried to turn it on."

"You're a sick one, ain't ya?"

Sitting in the hotel room Steve starts talking about all his gadgets and one of them is his fancy flashlight.  Meanwhile, I hear Smitty open the cooler to grab another beer and he slurs out, "Hey, Joe, tell him 'bout yer damned ole frashright!  Where is that frashright anyway?"  Steve and I look at him and he's waving his arms around like that silly robot did on Lost In Space.

"It's down in the car, Smitty."

I looked at Steve's flashlight and was fairly impressed with its brilliance then walked it over and handed it to Smitty - he was sitting on the edge of one of the beds.

"Hey, Joe!   you oughta show Steve your frashright!  Where is it?"

"It's down in the car, Smitty, same place where it was two minutes ago."

"This is a pretty nicsh frashright, Steve."  Smitty said and although there was only a six-foot distance from where he was sitting on the bed to where I was sitting on the chair next to the table, he could only mange to throw Steve's flashlight about three feet.  His arms just weren't working too well.

The next morning me 'n Steve were up with the birds and we got ourselves involved in a great conversation.  Suddenly...several hours later...Smitty began to stir in his bed.

"Ohhh, my heeaaad!  Would one of you guys please take a look over here and see if I have a heeaad?"

The three of us enjoyed a nice breakfast and afterward we parted ways; Steve headed back to Oregon and the pair of us in the opposite direction to Montana.

An ignorant person will say you can't meet someone but once.

I disagree...with a buncha guys like that?  It's like meeting every one them for the first time.