Road Trip to Eau Claire, Wisconsin
It all began with a log splitter....
There was a series of books that were my absolute favorite when I was a kid (and still are). It was the Song of Albion series by Stephen Lawhead. The first line of the first book "The Paradise War" goes something like this "It all began with an aurochs".
Like that epic tale, mine starts in a similar fashion.
Actually, I am kidding. This was far from an epic tale, just a two day marathon roadtrip to Wisconsin with @a4xjeeper to pick up his brand new log splitter.
In our younger years we likely would have tried to cannonball it and take even less time than we did. As we get older, our bodies just can't recover, so we left on Sunday morning, drove the ten hours to Eau Claire, and then spent the night.
Woke up Monday morning, picked up his splitter at Wolfe Ridge Manufacturing and headed back home. We pulled into his driveway round 7:45 at night and then I had another half hour drive back to my house.
It's been a long time since he and I had an adventure like this, so I was more than eager to ride along despite my busy schedule.
This post is going to be relatively short, but don't worry, I have plenty of other posts to share. I took a total of 89 pictures on this trip and you are going to be forced to see them all!
This is the exterior of Wolfe Ridge. Apparently they just built this building because they outgrew their old one at a different location. I ask @a4xjeeper why he decided to get a log splitter 10 hours away when there were plenty of other ones out there. He said he had been watching YouTube videos and in those videos a brand called Easton and Wolfe Ridge were consistently mentioned as the top of the line.
Not to do anything low-key, my friend definitely wanted to go top of the line. They custom build the machines and the employees we met were really friendly. Apparently even though these range anywhere from $5000, to $15,000 USD, they are still much cheaper than the Easton brand, so my buddy was actually being a little conservative.
The one in the front is my friends. The two other ones were waiting to be shipped or picked up. He could have had this shipped but at 1500 pounds or more, it likely would have been quite expensive. Plus we wouldn't have gotten the chance to hang out.
By the way, did you notice he has a Hive account now? After four years of me talking about it he finally decided it was time. I am not sure if he will blog at all, but he is definitely interested in the investment opportunities that are becoming more available on HIVE. So welcome @a4xjeeper
The craftsmanship on these is pretty impressive and I can see why they charge such a premium for it. My friend actually has a growing firewood business. He confided in me a while ago that he actually has been making more selling wood on the side than his wife does with her part time job at the hospital. I have a feeling it will only take one season for this splitter to pay for itself!
They loaded it into the back of his truck with a fork lift. I am not exactly sure how he is going to get it out, but that is his problem, not mine. He has forks for his tractor, but I think he is going to try and roll it out with ramps.
Safely in the truck, we started the process of strapping it in. We had to leave the tailgate down to accommodate the length of the machine, so we needed to be sure it was secured tightly.
After it was adequately secured, we just needed to clean up the straps so they didn't go flying behind us down the highway and we were off! I don't think the machine moved an inch the whole way home. It was tied down pretty solid. Even when we were going 81 MPH down the expressway!
If you care, this is the Wolfe Ridge YouTube Channel. I got to meet the guy who shows up in most of these videos. It's amazing how efficient these units are!
Overall, it was a fun and virtually flawless trip. I look forward to sharing more about it with you through the week!
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
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Awesome, it looks like a great piece of kit. It would be great to see it in action.
Check out that YouTube page. They have a ton of videos. We got to watch them fire it up briefly just to go over the controls with him. They didn't split any actual wood though.
Great way to catch up, time together travelling further afield to help your buddy out, wishing him good luck with new purchase and sideline business splitting wood.
Now you know where you may get the extra wood chunks for BBQ's !LOLZ
Yeah, no kidding. It was a great time. I turned him on to smoking, so I might have to fight him for those wood chips now!
Secondary business in the making, wood chips have become quite in demand.
Yeah, I can imagine that is probably true!
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That was a nice engine
Yeah, it is pretty sweet. They fired it up for a little bit and it was so quiet. I couldn't believe it. Honda makes some good engines.
Can't wait to see you driving that bad-ass engine
That was a long time of convincing and now you succeeded. So welcome @a4xjeeper!
hehe and yeah, looking forward for more photos to share as you said.
Yeah, it helps that there are more options available now than just blogging. I think if it were still that way he likely wouldn't have had me create an account.