We have spent the past two days with our friends Russ and Sue.  We have had a wonderful time visiting and touring the area.  Sue made delicious smoked pork chops yesterday.  I haven't had them in years.  I forgot how good they are.  If we had room in the freezer I would buy some to take along.
We topped off a great meal with coconut cream pie.  It was a huge pie and we made a huge dent in it. It was all from scratch and very good.

After dinner we got on the mules, I guess that is what you call them, and took a ride around the farm. This is beautiful peaceful country.  I can understand why they love it so much.  I think they were very fortunate to grow up in farm country and work a farm all their lives.  There is an independence I don't think you can find anywhere else.  Farming is a gamble.  Russ seems to always be watching the sky for rain or fair weather.  Everything depends on the weather, good or bad.  Good harvest or lean.

Small town people know everyone and care for each other.  That is so unlike where we live.  We are lucky to know a couple of neighbors.  Everyone keeps to themselves.  Here it seems everyone is family.

Today they took us to the El Capitan restaurant for lunch.  It was good homestyle food and my Florida friends would not believe the price.  I had chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and green beans.  It was the daily special for just $5.95.  It was all I could eat.  The restaurant was packed with locals who stopped in for lunch.  They get a lot of food out fast in this place.  They erased the daily special after a few minutes.  I guess it was so popular they ran out.

The building has all kinds of memorabilia hanging on the walls.  Old signs for various products, old road signs and circus posters.  Out front is an old black and white police car with the old gum ball on top.  It said Mayberry PD on the side.  In the dining room was a large sign that said, Bellflower population 403.  Today when we drove through Bellflower I noticed the sign said population 393.  I guess some people left town.

We stopped by the Purina plant where their daughter, Sherry, works.  She has been there forty years.  They make feed for everything from dogs to elephants at this plant.  Russ sold corn to them in the past.  Maybe your pooch ate some of Russ's corn.  We toured around Montgomery City for a time.  It is a small farming community.  It seems to be full of life and wholesome people.

Back at their house we were in for another treat.  Sue made homemade strawberry ice cream.  It was very tasty.  I think I need to buy an ice cream machine.  Sue said when the kids were little, she would make ice cream and put it in a tin outside the house in winter.  The kids would come home from school and scoop up a big serving of homemade ice cream from the tin.  One time the tin disappeared.  Some varmint probably got its head stuck in the tin and walked off with it.  Sue said she thought it would turn up in the spring when Russ started preparing the fields but it never did.

We had hours of good conversation.   It has been so good to get together with them again.  They feel like family to us.  How many people do you meet in life that you feel that way about?  Not many.  That is what makes them so special to us.  I hope they get down to Florida this winter.  If they don't I guess I will just have to drive out here again.