Woke up, not quite so early this morning. Packed up and rolled out – back to the same breakfast place to order the exact same thing. Really, when you find a perfect lox bagel – there’s nothing to do but order it over and over. The coffee shop in Trinidad still makes me happy. They don’t do paper take-away cups. You order a coffee – you get a mug. If you’re in town for a while, bring the mug back. Or a different mug. Whatever. No paper cups though – that would make for a lot of trash.
Drove south to Eureka to the Blue Ox Millworks. This is the brainchild of a mad-genius style woodworker who does victorian style woodworking – mostly with period tools and machines. They demonstrated a treadle powered ripsaw, and a bicycle pedal style jigsaw. He had an interesting quote on the wall:
Kids don’t need an education – they need a problem interesting enough to get them to figure stuff out.
Not sure if I agree in toto – but that’s certainly something I’ve felt about modern education. It seems to squash creativity and interest in problem solving in the interest of facts and figures. Insert your own rant about mass education designed for a population of assembly line workers if you choose. I’ve said it before and don’t need to re-iterate.
Proceeded South to Ferndale to the victorian town fronts – and took lunch in our car on the leftovers of last night’s dinner. Did I mention last night’s dinner? The fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and cucumber? The olives (because I couldn’t see buying a pint of olive oil for one salad – but an appetizer of olives sounded pretty good. The locally smoked salmon? The filet of rock cod, caught that day on the day boats? Because, I can tell you – even the next day – a round of bread, some cheese, fresh basil, and smoked fish made a damn good lunch.
Then we drove down the Avenue of the Giants … about 30 miles of awesome two lane road winding among 1,000 year old trees and kitsch shops. And then we drove approximately the 90 northernmost miles of CA coastal rt. 1. That was some of the most amazing driving I’ve ever done. When they say “25 miles per hour” around a given curve – I found that I got serious, butt-clenching adrenaline if I came into that curve above about 35. When they said “10 miles per hour,” I laughed out loud and slowed down to 10.
Still, when we got to the Glendeven Inn, I was totally ready for a glass of wine … and they were 100% willing to oblige with a flight from the local selection of Pinot Grigios. We relaxed for a couple of hours – fed the chickens, looked at the llamas, and generally amused ourselves. Then it was off to a solidly vegan meal at Ravens Restaurant just up the street. We looked over their gardens as well and pronounced them “good.”
I write this from in front of the massive fireplace in the common room – and I’m starting to remember why I work so hard: It’s not for the work itself – but for the rest of life that surrounds it.
