Finally, on what was planned to be our last day the sun decided to grace us with its presence! After breakfast we headed out to Eureka to visit a heritage woodworking factory.
This place, Blue Ox, specialises in custom woodwork for heritage buildings, and does a lot of its work in redwood. The redwoods are slowly disappearing, and only about 4% of the remaining trees are “old growth” i.e. over one thousand years old. In the last 40 years or so strict rules have been put in place for the harvesting of redwoods. There is no more felling of old growth trees. If an old growth redwood falls naturally, large companies (more than 30 employees) are not allowed to use that tree, they must offer it for sale to a smaller company. Evidently redwood is THE wood to use. It is water proof, bug proof, warp proof and just about anything else proof!
The other thing about Blue Ox is that they use older “man powered” machines for a lot of their work.
Hand Powered Table Saw
Treadle Powered Lathe
The blue machine in the front is for making the pointy end of picket fences, a couple of which can be seen on the table saw a couple of pictures up.
Long Hand Saw Hanging From Ceiling
1936 Powered Scroll Saw
Sit on Pedal Powered Scroll Saw
Treadle Powered Scroll Saw
A Very Large Lathe!
Blue Ox is the last place in the world to manufacture redwood eaves trough.
Blue Ox also has a print shop
And a Fabric Shop
Outside were a number of other areas, there is also an old trolley bus which is constructed mostly of wood, Blue Ox has been restoring it.
There was also a ceramics area, with its own earth kiln (slightly larger than yours Marie!)
The place was amazing, and they are continuing to expand into a heritage village which will also provide training for students in the various arts.
Next it was off to Eureka to walk around, Geo-cache and find some murals!
Above is the front of the building that hosts the mural in the picture before it.
The building above, The Eagle Tavern, is in Old Town Eureka and has recently had its exterior refurbished by Blue Ox.
We had a pleasant lunch at a local bagel restaurant, then headed back to the RV park to start packing up for tomorrows move.
As we would be leaving around 7 AM we decided to pack away as much stuff as possible, both to make a quick get away and to avoid disturbing the neighbours. After hitching up the trailer to the truck I saw an ominous puddle of fluid under the drivers side of the truck. It turned out to be brake fluid.
I managed to track down a mechanic a couple of miles away who would take a look at the problem so I drove SLOWLY to the repair shop. The brakes were “different” but there was still plenty of stopping power in them. Initial diagnosis was that the Ottawa salt had done a number on the brake lines and caused one to rust through and leak! It was decided that the four brake lines in the cluster should be replaced, as it is quite likely the others could go at any time. The mechanic is confident that he can have it fixed by tomorrow afternoon. If we didn’t spot this now, then we would have had a brake failure out on the windy, hilly freeway with the trailer behind us. not a pleasant thought.
Luckily we can remain here another night if we need to, but I am looking at leaving here tomorrow afternoon, and drive about half way to our next site and stop at a motel. This will have the added benefit of driving two 4 hours stints rather than one 8 hour one.