Adventure 740: Arlie's Farm Rogersville, Missouri/Hutchinson, KS

We drove ourselves hard and put ourselves away wet here at Arlie's Farm, which is truly a multi-faceted endeavor. There's Beth's green house and garden, her two Air B&Bs, and Stan's metal shop out of which he runs, Rustics, his custom Western and Lodge Home decor. Oh, and they're building a house because their main house has become too busy as a wedding venue. The have a Clydesdale horse, Norma, who is about to give birth, and Stan has started selling some of his metal work on Etsy, which he says, "It's about to run me ragged." On his shop wall among other metal pieces, he has a circular metal cutout painted red that says, "Deplorable's for Trump." Clearly, a gaff by Hillary, that one sound bite galvanized several layers of these good hard working folk who are anything but deplorable. They simply believe in working hard and earning what you get. Beth, the lady of the house, was genuinely kind, and though she clearly has the energy of  about 60 gigawatts, she gleefully gave us a tour of the place. I'm always astounded by the people we meet. Everyone everywhere is just living the dream. I know that's not everyone on every strata, but it's true for a large portion of folks. As for Judy and me, we're seeing the country in its best light. It's uplifting and makes us realize that life is good, especially today.

Really narrow, really scary bridge across the Ohio. Only really, really scary when semi-trucks pass by. 

Part of Stan's metal shop at the Arlie farm. He's quite talented and has forged (pun intended) a nice living selling "trinkets" as my late buddy, Dave, would say.

He also does custom work for a number of places. He calls his business "Rustic".

Our spot at the Arlie farm.

Like most working shops, there's action everywhere.

The main house, which will become the event center when the new house is completed.

We left at O dark thirty this morning so we could treat ourselves to breakfast in Springfield. Breakfast was medium to ochre, but a treat nonetheless.

Afterwards, we bucked the wind and the drizzle for five hours into Judy's home town of Hutchinson. We made it safely to Wib and Arlene's, so once again we were blessed with traveling mercies, and most of all we're glad to be here and happy that life is good, especially today.