Seventeen ex basketball players that were my teammates from 1950 to 1954 at Hardin Simmons University descended on Flathead Lake this week for a three day visit. The years rolled back and it wasn’t like we had been apart for over 50 years except for a couple of earlier reunions. The guys brought their wives and we had a terrific time. What a great group of people! We had a cookout on the lake each night and we had a lot of laughs and memories. We took a lot of rides on my pontoon boat that seats 15 people. A couple of us got on the jet skis and I called the rest a bunch of wimps because they wouldn’t get on them. Those things go 60 miles an hour and really give you a rush when you hit a few bumps caused by the wind and other boats. The ex-teammates came from as far away as Florida but most were from Texas. The youngest was 71 and the oldest, who was an army vet before he entered school, was 82.

Even though it was nice to get together, I felt my real age, perhaps for the first time. There is no getting around it, I’m as old as most of them. I do happen to have a youthful spirit, but the body is getting older and older. Oh well, it’s supposed to. Now it’s back to Vegas and getting ready to go to Macau with Todd. We are going to play in the APT and promote DoylesRoom online poker in Asia. We are looking forward to going and enjoying ourselves. It’s a long plane ride and it will be my first time there. The farthest east I have been is the Philippines and I remember how surprised I was that the public seemed to know who I was. They tell me to expect the same in Macau. We also plan on playing in a big cash game while we are there. The minimum buy in is $150,000 but a lot of the rich Chinese buy in for a million dollars. Should be interesting!

Doyle Brunson on Life in Montana

If you have ever driven over 1,000 miles in two days, you know the exact same feeling you have experienced with jet lag. I’ve been sitting around the past few days just chilling out and enjoying the slow paced life here in Montana.

Reflecting on the drive up here, it was pretty boring driving out of Vegas on Interstate 15 North. Mesquite was a nice break in the scenery but when I got to St George, Utah things really changed. The mountains and deep passes were breathtaking with their change of colors. I guess whatever ore was present gave a different hue to the land. There were blue, black, gold and red streaks running through the mountains and all of them were nice.

I had a bittersweet memory as I drove through St George. There is a health spa a few miles outside of town, and my pal the late Chip Reese and I were determined to stay there a few weeks until we lost some weight. It was an expensive spa and we paid a month in advance, about 6,000 dollars each. It was baseball season and we were betting a lot of games so we put a 4,000 dollar satellite system in our rooms where we could sweat the games. We felt it was well worth it. The next day we went to all their exercise classes, even the swimming classes. We ate all our meals at the cafeteria where the diet food was reasonably good. The second night Chip asked me if I had noticed the Sizzler Restaurant where we turned off the highway. When I said yes, he suggested we go eat our last meal there before we really got into this diet. Naturally I said yes, let’s go, so we went there and knocked a hole in their salad bar along with 2 or 3 entrees each. When we finished Chip looked at me, and I looked at him. Without a word being said, we got in his new BMW and drove 120 miles an hour back to Las Vegas. We laughed about that many times afterward because we never attempted to recover any of our money from the spa.

As we drove into the upper part of Utah, I was surprised to see the landscape change from mountains to plains and rolling hills. It looked like a scene from a Western movie with mesas on the hills and the ridges were almost crying for an Indian or a Cowboy riding across the skyline.

When I was a kid I used to read all of Zane Grey’s books about the old west. I always wondered what he was talking about when he talked about the purple mountains. When I got into Idaho it was obvious because the mountains had a deep purplish color. They were gorgeous and the farms were everywhere and the crops, mostly Alfalfa, were in full bloom. Each farmhouse had trees planted on the north side of their houses to keep the cold winter winds from blowing directly on the house.

We saw every kind of animal on our trip. We saw all kinds of cows and horses, lamas, buffalo, sheep, elk, deer and believe it or not, we saw a camel farm near Butte, Montana. I saw an old Texas Longhorn Steer as we came into Montana and I couldn’t help wondering if his ancestors came from Lonesome Dove with the old Texas Rangers Gus McRae and Woodrow Call.

Don’t be surprised if Obama or McCain neither one win Montana in the upcoming presidential election. There are Ron Paul billboards and posters everywhere. All the locals are talking Paul up and encouraging everyone to write him in when they vote. I kinda wish some other states would do the same because he is pro gambling.

Louise Brunson worked her way through the University Of Kentucky and pharmacy school at the University Of Georgia. She was the number 1 pharmacist at a chain of 150 drugstores. She gave birth to 4 great children and she has been a terrific wife and companion to me for 46 years. I say all this so you can see the good far, far outweighs the bad. But she had me captive in an automobile for two long days and she talked my ears off. My eardrums felt like Sitting Bull was having his tom-toms send out messages to all his tribes and I was the messenger. I’m sure some of you guys out there know what I’m talking about!