We fire up the fans for Memorial Day

Hi everyone, we're back online after a great show at Coos Bay Speedway. We enjoyed our little stay at Winchester Bay. It was nice watching the fishing boats coming and going, and we had a great meal of fresh fish at Unger's Bay Restaurant, which floats in the bay. Marlene had fish and chips, and I had fried oysters with fish and chips, all served with homemade coleslaw, and topped off with a couple of draft beers. Ar first, Marlene was concerned because we were served on cardboard trays with plastic forks, but one bite of the food impressed enough to forget the simple surroundings. We enjoyed our meal on the water, and returned to the motor home stuffed and happy.

On Friday morning we left Winchester Bay for the track at Coos Bay. We were glad to leave the RV park, because it was fully booked for the holiday weekend, and would be a real zoo! The 30 mile drive to the track was through winding, tree lined roads, and the town of Coos Bay is quaint, but has too many one way streets!

Coos Bay Speedway is a nice facility, snuggled among rolling hills. It has both a dirt oval, and a drag strip. We were greeted warmly, and reviewed our show for the next night. These guys have it together, with an itinerary that they stick to like the ten commandments! We were asked to set up on the dragstrip so that we would have a nice paved area to ourselves. The last 2 races here had been rained out, and we were praying for good weather for race day.

We spent a quiet night, and in the morning the track crews arrived early to prep the track and the concessions. Some racers arrived and set up their travel trailers so that they could camp out with their families. Saturday morning was the big Memorial Day parade in Coos Bay, and the track manager had arranged for us to join some of the racers in the parade. They even supplied us a flat deck trailer and a pick-up truck and driver for the event! The parade was scheduled to start at 10:30, but didn't get rolling til 11. We saw some of the town, and met some of the people, then returned to the track to wait for the evening races. This was to be an "Eve of Destruction", and in addition to our car, there would be a guy crashing through a car standing on end (his first time doing it), as well as boat crash racing.

Our first show was early in the program, and we ran the car on the dragstrip to warm up the fans. A nice young man named Caleb was assigned to help us get set up, and he did a great job. I did a Fire and Fury show on the dragstrip, topped off by a speed run up the strip. I had a blast!

Our second show was a car burn on the dirt oval. I burned the Taurus wagon that the crash guy had hit earlier in evening. It went very well, and the fans loved it. I even took an impromptu victory lap of the track, much to Marlene's consternation!

After the racing, the racers who were camped out started to party, and continued until 4:30 am. We didn't get much sleep. In the morning we cleaned and serviced the car, and hung out for a while. We also found that our fridge had stopped working! Too bad we'd stocked up on meat and veggies so that we'd be fully prepared for the next week. Despite all my efforts, the fridge remained dead, and our food started to thaw. Nothing to be done about it on the long weekend, so I asked to track owner Chuck for some bags of ice, and got onto the computer to find a used fridge. The nearest place I found used RV fridges was in Sacramento, about 475 miles away. We thought things through and decided to leave on Monday a.m. instead of our planned Tuesday departure, and stop over in Sacramento to try to get a fridge installed on Wednesday. Now we'll have to have big meals to use the food before it spoils. Our next show is in Watsonville, California on Friday night, so we have to get things moving.

On Monday morning we stopped at Walmart in Coos Bay and picked up a couple of coolers and some bags of ice to preserve our food, and hit the road to California. This drive is through the coastal mountains, and takes a lot of concentration as we climbed 5 mile grades that took us up 4000 feet, then descended faster into the valleys before climbing again. We had to hunt for a place to dump our holding tanks, and we had to fight the holiday traffic, but we eventually reached our target for the day of Anderson, California at 6 pm. On arrival at the Walmart we found the place plastered with "No Overnight Parking" signs. Kind of weird for a 24 hour store!! We decided to chance it anyway, and set up in corner of the lot. Marlene decided to cook up the chicken thighs that had thawed out in the freezer, and I went to the store for some wine. WOW, our favourite Oak Creek wine is only $1.97 here. What a bargain!

We had a nice dinner, and settled in for the night. Hope we don't get kicked out in the middle of the night. Tomorrow we should get to Sacramento. Stay tuned....

Back on the road again

Well, we're back on the road after spending a month visiting with Miranda in Edmonton. It was nice to see her, and we accomplished some of the bureaucratic stuff that needed to be done as well. But, after a month invading Miranda's space we were really starting to annoy her, so it's a good thing we had to leave for our next job in Oregon!

We left on Saturday morning, headed for Pincher Creek, Alberta, our first stop along the way. The drive was uneventful, but of course we had to have winds and rain! We got led astray a bit by the GPS in Pincher Creek trying to find the Walmart, but with the help of a local resident we finally found the place. It was chilly at the foot of the mountains, and of course still windy.

Sunday morning we headed west towards the mountains, passing through the Crowsnest Pass and such places as Fernie and Cranbrook before reaching the US border at Kingsgate, B.C.

We were nervous about crossing over again with the car and everything, and at the border the officer had us pull out of line and park for inspection. We were surprised that the only concern they had was the ingredients of Ben's dog food! Poor Ben was distraught as the officer seized all his canned dog food, because it was made in Canada and contained "unspecified meat products". Apparently, they take no chances on having any Canadian lamb or goat products coming into their country. Despite his agony over his lost food, Ben didn't bark, just stared at the officer and whined. After a lecture on what products are allowed into the US, we were sent on our way. Nobody even asked how long we are going to stay!

From the border we proceeded to Post Falls, Idaho for our second night. At the Walmart we stocked up on some groceries, and of course some dog food for Ben, as well as our favourite wines at $2.97 a bottle. The place was really crowded, and we had to park at the rear of the store near the loading docks. No one bothered us there, but it was a bit noisy in the night as trucks were arriving and unloading.

Marlene's cold was worsening, and she was feeling low as we headed across Washington state, and passed through Spokane and Kennewick, then turned west towards Portland, Oregon. We bypassed Portland itself, and stopped for the night at the Walmart in Happy Valley, Oregon. This is a small Walmart, and has signs posted prohibiting overnighting, but after reading the fine print carefully, we realized that they specified penalties for parking more than 24 hours, so we set ourselves up in the parking lot and went to do some more shopping. Surprise! This Walmart has no groceries, and in Oregon they only sell wine and beer there, so we had to walk a couple of miles to the Fred Meyer store and back, then to a liquor store and back just to finish our provisioning for the next few days. Having no car sure gets us a lot of exercise!

We were the only RV there for a while, then these 3 really old beater RVs pulled in. Boy, were they rough! One had the whole roof covered with plastic to keep out the rain. Another had a caved in side. One fellow came to talk to me, and told me all about the mechanical problems he had been having. These folks live full time in these wrecks, and they are locals, and live at the Walmarts. One woman was very friendly with the store security guy, and he told them to park by us!

In the morning we left around 9 am for our next stop, Winchester Bay, Oregon. We had decided to take a couple of days off from driving, and enjoy this RV park on the coast, right at a marina. This drive was on a lot of winding road, through some lovely scenery, and was a bit of a challenging drive. We finally arrived (in the rain of course) at the RV park, and it is even nicer than it looked in the pics online. Very well kept place, with the waves pounding on the rocks behind us, and lovely grounds all around. We cooked up a nice roast chicken ($4.28 for a 5 pound bird) and had a nice relaxing meal. We have 44 channels of cable TV here, so we are in heaven!

We are only about 25 miles from Coos Bay, which is where our job is this weekend. This is the first long weekend here in the states (Memorial Day), and when we leave on Friday morning the place will fill up completely. But for now, there are only around a dozen RVs here.

Marlene and Ben saw a seal when they were out walking, and we checked out prices on fresh fish. Wow, it is expensive right off the boat! There is a nice little restaurant here, on a boat in the marina, and the prices are lower for fish, scallops, oysters, calamari etc. than for fresh uncooked from the fish market. We`re hoping that Marlene`s cold will subside so that she can really enjoy a couple of days of R & R here before we go to work. Stay tuned....