Today we took a spin about 40 miles northwest to Coos Bay so we could visit my sister-in-law who lives in a nifty house that looks like a pretty little barn and has a fabulous view of the bay. I was delighted to not only see Katie but also to see her great animals, Robin the dog and Zeus the cat. The three of them are some of my favorite associates.

We hobnobbed for a couple hours with Katie, maintaining a keen eye on her pets who engage in delightful antics when we are not petting them. Robin is a Lab and Zeus is a Maine Coon who weighs only 18 pounds. They are both gorgeous and remarkably well-behaved although Robin, in a fit of fun, broke Katie’s leg a couple years ago and she still limps a bit.

We soon became ravenous so we all piled into the pickup and headed down to 7 Devils Brewery for lunch and some nice porter. They serve pretty good albacore and fries although it came with arugula salad which I think tastes like bitter paint. They also serve the Canadian heart-plug, poutine, which I ordered for the table. Poutine is French fries covered with garlic cheese curds and gravy. It may sound bad but tastes good and there wasn’t a speck left on the plate when we left.

After finishing our conversations and pet wrestling, Peggy and I departed but only traveled about 10 miles south before pulling off and parking outside the Coos Bay Speedway, a 3/8 mile dirt track. Tonight the events were stock car races with many classes being represented. There were tiny old Japanese and American coupes with four cylinder engines that sound like pissed off kazoos when running at full tilt. There were late model sportsmen and modified classes with large V-8 engines that make a terrific noise and crash regularly. One of them flipped over at least twice before coming to rest on its top. The driver came out with a big grin and no injuries. Track management was giving away bicycles to kids this evening so there were hundreds of munchkins seemingly going in all directions in the spectator areas. They had a jet dragster that blew a lot of smoke, deafened many with afterburner use and then screamed down the adjacent drag strip while all the spectators watched with their fingers in their ears.

At about 10:00 PM, they ran the last V-8 race before wheeling the dragster out to the center of the track where an old car was chained to the noisy, hot end of the dragster before being incinerated by the jet exhaust. A fine night. We headed back to the Remote Outpost after all this fun.