On to Bert & Faye's

Good morning,

It's 0800 here in N. CA.  I've been up since 0600, enjoying my coffee & breakfast before everyone else around here gets moving.

As I reported yesterday, I had an appointment, at my campsite, with the carpet cleaner at 0700 (not 0800 as I misstated).  Louis showed up on time with his steam cleaner equipped van and got right to work.  Since I didn't have enough cash to pay his fee in less than a $100 bill, I had to find an ATM.  The adjacent OK QuikStop's ATM was out of service, so I had to find another, a couple of miles away.  Elaine's Nexus 10, combined with the Verizon MiFi, has really been helpful in situations like this:  Just select one of several navigation APPs, do a search for "ATM Eureka", and request directions to the selected one -- Eureka!, There's a map with a blue line to follow!

By the time I got back to the coach, Louis was just about finished making the polypropylene berber carpet look like new.  He thanked me for having used such easily cleaned carpet and informed me that I can even clean it with bleach without hurting it.  Good to know, since the lacquer thinner I have sometimes used is so flammable. :-)  He assured me that the odor from the spilled water would go away eventually -- and it has, after 4 days.

With about 8 hours to kill before Bert & Faye are reputed to begun stirring, I moved to downtown Eureka for sightseeing.  While Eureka is a costal city, it's not right on the coast.  Rather it's separated from the Pacific by Samoa Peninsula, visited yesterday.  The old town lies right by the water with a nicely restored/modernized "riverwalk".  Most of the buildings in the area are in good condition, having obviously been refurbished as part of a major tourist attracting effort.  There's a LOT of vacant real estate, and most of the shops are tourist oriented; lots of artsy stuff, from crafts, to paintings, to pure junk.

 Just across from the Eureka "riverwalk" is the Shelter Island Marina:

 There's been a lot of money spent refurbishing:

Read this plaque carefully for a reminder that this was once the "wild west" (Not from the building above):

Eureka is becoming a gathering place for artists of all sorts; this and other facilities reflects that new "industry":

And, there's a certain "uninhibited" atmosphere to the place; this is not an unusual sight::

It's an enchanting place, with a lot of vitality despite the obviously depressed economy.  Perhaps most disturbing to me was that I saw more homeless, or apparently so, people than even in San Francisco.  Discussions with locals reveal that the government is receptive to them, providing unusually generous support for them.  In my campground there were temporarily parked 2 large motor homes marked something like "Mobile Street Outreach".  Public health facilities were prominent, and in the heart of the refurbished old town area was a homeless shelter.  Someone I talked to said many of the "homeless" are really "houseless" -- implying a voluntary rather than unavoidable situation.

After a disappointing lunch (I forgot that here "barbecue" is synonymous with "beef", not "pork"), I headed out to Kneeland, CA to visit Bert & Faye Curtis.  I'd been warned that they live on a hill.  What no one told me that it's a HILL, and that the road is NARROW, and STEEP, and CROOKED.  For about 10 miles!  Nevertheless, the ol' Cad500 leveled the hills pretty well (though sometimes in 1st gear) and I only went past their gate twice before entering the driveway (with the toad disconnected to make the turn).  I then entered the wonderland of Curtis Chaos:

The entry road leads into the woods.

Then the workshop magically appears

There are a couple of BMW Isetta's in there somewhere!

Bert's got a LOT of exotic old cars!

And Faye's got a LOT of molds for bodies for exotic cars!

I'd sure like to have a car with that body.

Or maybe I'd rather have a hard top?

Here's my assigned campsite -- just beyond the picnic site for the 4th of July.

 Faye was already busy at work on their latest project when I arrived.  Bert appeared a little later.  That project is a replica Lola race car chassis (built by Bert) and body (built by Faye) to be shipped to Belgium.  We spent the rest of Monday loading that onto their flatbed Isuzu cab-over truck to move it to a photogenic site for "here's what you're buying" photos for their customer.  That pretty well wore me down and I retired to the coach at about 1800 -- probably 6 hours before they quit.

On Tuesday, I stayed in the coach until near noon, when Faye came to get me for a trip to town for crate materials for the Lola.  She gave me cab-over driving lessons (thought she was in a Lotus again) back down and up their hill.  The single building supply/hardware in Eureka would be very impressive for any city, much less one of 28,000 population -- something's thriving there.  Back "home", we got the Lola chassis fastened down to the base of the 6'x12' pallet on which it will be shipped.  Again, I knocked off several hours before they did.

Wednesday, Bert & Faye tied the body shell down over the chassis by the time Doug & Shirley Norton drove up in their GMC.  The familiar sound of GMC exhaust brought me out -- I'd been inside past noon, working on labeling 193 photos and creating yesterday's blog.  We all then worked on the crate.  By my 1830 quitting time, the crate was complete.  I don't think they've received the final shipping instructions from the customer, but the Lola's load and ready.

Today's the 4th of July picnic.  No one knows how many to expect -- "maybe 40" is as close an estimate as I've been able to get out of them.  Since I hear stirrings outside, I'd better join them.

Everyone have a great 4th!

Ken H.