It's Indian summer here. Temperature in the high 70s, sunny and lovely. Enjoy it while it lasts!

My daughter sent me new pictures of the baby. Emma has grown so much since the last time I saw her, at Labor Day, the pictures took my breath away! Time is rushing past like the big winds of the stratosphere!

On the other hand, Louis and I went down to the Modoc Speedway again last Saturday night for the big $10,000 race. Our friends were racing. What an experience! It was loud, dirty and cold -- but we had a wonderful time! The cars are rattletraps, but so colorfully painted and lovingly tended! All the winnings go back into the cars.

They're brought to the Speedway in trailers practically the size of houses, and the trailers have widow's walks on top so that the owners and mechanics and their families can stand or sit up there to watch the races! It's definitely a family affair, with wives and children of all ages hovering around the cars in the pit. We sat in the pit bleachers. We ate hot dogs and French fries and drank hot chocolate. It may be warm during the days now, in October and November, but the nights are cold.

We didn't get home until what would have been 3AM except for the change in the clocks back to standard time. The big race came last of all the races and took more than 2 hours to run because every time a car spun out or collided with another car or lost a roof or had some other mishap, the race had to be stopped so the roof could be put back on or some other piece of metal could be torn off altogether or the car could limp or be towed off the track, which is what happened to our friends' car. Something stopped the race on nearly every lap--and we were told the race was 50 laps long. We lost count! So you can see why it took forever!

Dirty with red dust, cold, tired and delighted were we.

Everything had to be washed on Sunday.