Ron Faulkner, left, of San Diego, walks across McWenneger Slough, east of Kalispell, Mont., Thursday, as Roger Franklund, of Columbia Falls, Mont., fishes through the ice. Recent warm temperatures have melted the top layer of ice, but the fishermen reported the ice to be three to five inches thick. (AP Photo/Daily Inter Lake, Craig Moore)

DFO (personal note): It was very close to this spot that I fell in love with northwest Montana. You pass McWenneger Slough as you drive out old Highway 2 from Kalispell toward the Bad Rock Canyon and Glacier Park. A little further down the road is the turn to a little Mennonite Church that sits in the shadow of the Rockies at Creston. Alongside it once stood a softball diamond. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven the first time I played left field for my church softball team (in summer 1977), with the Rockies towering ahead, the little white Mennonite church to my right, and a knee-deep wheat field behind me. Keep your mansions just over the hilltop. That's the scene I expect to see on the other side when I cash it in here.

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