Fold this comic into the mayor of awesome town!

6/8/12

hi ben,

We really enjoyed meeting you at Artomatic on Saturday and we
still want to buy original art #5.  Lets make a deal.  How about we pay
you *** for #5 as currently framed PLUS dinner and the best
mixology you have ever had out at our house on the Shenandoah
River?  (Um, I guess the fee includes delivery?!)

Wonder whether the dinner idea is sane and safe or if perhaps we
are murderous dog kickers?  Well, check out the guesthouse blog
(our virtual guestbook):

https://coalstovesink.com/

The basic idea would be to have a nice dinner, drink too much, and
crash in the guesthouse.  Breakfast would involve eggs so fresh
that they are still warm from being laid.  And so on.

We can figure out where #5 will be put on the wall in the
guesthouse.  Bring a sharpie.  And river shoes.

———————

“Hey Sam, would you want to go with me?”

“Yeah!! Let’s do it!”

(Sam)

Many jokes were made during the drive down from Baltimore.

“Bring river shoes… Oh, and night goggles…”

“So the way this works is you drop your keys in this bowl…”

We had no idea what to expect.

As soon as we pulled up however, all those fears / jokes were put to rest. Our hosts are living the dream! Beautiful house, land, chickens, dogs, pigs, horses, peacock, river, garden, guesthouse, “and so on”! They seemed ageless. We were immediately ecstatic upon arriving. I think everyone at some point or another has considered what it might be like to settle down with someone they love & start a family farm out in the middle of nowhere. I know I have. My mom did it in Belize. It so so nice to be immersed in it, and to see it done so flawlessly. This is the real deal. The Little House on the Prairie, Ben Carson’s estate in Bonanza, Edward Gorey’s living room, the childhood home of Superman or Johnny Cash, a place like one you might picture Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, Beatrix Potter, or Mark Twain producing their best work from…

The river felt amazing. The guesthouse seemed like it was pulled from a Wes Anderson movie. Dinner & breakfast were totally delicious (so much so that I tried to re-create it somewhat the following night to less than spectacular results). An evening full of interesting new friends & rum filled conversation was very much appreciated. We feel really lucky to have been invited. I’m totally overjoyed that this was all the result of an appreciation of my artwork. Would love to return one day to continue the wall drawings. And to finish the short lived foosball game…

Yesssssssss!