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....
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