#4 SCOOTER SUBLIME'S TRAVEL JOURNAL - CORONA, CA

Sunday, August 27, 2023 - Corona, California

It’s Scooter here. Today you might have expected a picture of me with my head pointing into the wind from my car seat. This Sunday’s Travel Journal should be describing my discoveries along Interstate roads between beautiful Corona, CA to Williams, AZ. That was our original plan. Our gracious friends, the Turners, expected to be waving us off this morning after hosting a fun, food and adventure-filled visit. Until Covid hit, these friends spend a few weeks every summer with us aboard PineAweigh cruising the Salish Sea. But then, you know, Covid. So this is our first visit together since I was a baby.

AUGUST 28, 2023 Monday

There’s nothing wrong with the view from the Turner’s kitchen table, is there. The only thing wrong is that my mom is still sitting at it in the wee hours of this Monday morning. We might have been waking in Williams, Arizona, packing up for our last leg to Santa Fe today were it not for a middle-of-last-Friday-night’s excruciating pain [her words, not mine] caused by a kidney stone fighting to be freed. That freedom seems to have occurred yesterday afternoon. Thank goodness for Carbon Urgent Care’s painkiller injection and meds. She was somewhat conscious yesterday, so we may well be on our way to Williams today. Monday. But, let me say this. There’s really nothing like good friends, right?

I have two especially good friends, Toby and Lilly. We tangle leashes, chase balls, and wrestle some. Humans have friends. That’s pretty obvious. And today I just want to tell you that these friends, the Turners, who are very kind to me, have been wonderful to my mom. Imagine that kidney thing occurring in a hotel somewhere along an Interstate Highway. But we are in the home of friends. Whew . . .

MONDAY

This part is a little funny, at least I think so. My mom is on medication that makes access to a restroom a good thing but we are traveling across the Mohave Desert (top temperature on I-15 rest stop: 116°).  I-40 to Williams, Arizona, and check it out ― it’s a very long road with no rest stops. My mom wasn’t laughing.

My mom was born in Arizona which qualifies her to be called a “Desert Rat” without being offended. But Williams, Arizona? None of that Mohave dry desert stuff here. This is high desert at the altitude of 6,765’. Find prairies, grazing land, and pine forests. It was first, and still is, mostly a Cowboy town.

Let’s be fair. It wasn’t first a Cowboy town. It was first home to native tribes that lived on and from the land for thousands of years. In the mid-1500s, Spanish explorers came looking for the elusive “Seven Cities of Cibola.” That wasn’t a joke back then.

Only after that did Non-native Americans arrive―trappers, and government scouts mostly, men wearing animal fur in winter snow. Mountain men, men like “Old Bill” (Sherley) Williams, arrive. In 1876, the town was set up in his name.

Mountain men were followed by gold hunters, and those guys were followed by some daring merchants, and bartenders, some sheep and cattle ranchers, women of questionable repute, a sheriff, and a preacher or two to pray over losers in gun battles. By 1881, the railway arrived, and Williams was on the map as a shipping center for ranching and lumber. It’s quite a history.

You might have guessed by now that’s the stuff my mom wanted me to tell you. The story I want to tell from Williams, Arizona is quite different, and probably much more to your liking.

Monday, August 28, ‘23 A Four-Year-Old’s Best Travel Story So Far

“Mom, let’s talk about the shower thing.”

“Let’s not,” she said.

“It’s a good story, mom.”

“Let’s talk about our time in California.”

“You were in the shower . . .” Scooter said.

“I was.”

“You were pretty tired.”

“I really was.”

“You had shampoo in your hair”

“I did.”

“Dad and I had gone outside on the last walk of the night. You had said ‘Be sure to take a key, I’ll be in the shower.’”

“Scooter, stop,” she said, as I chattered on. “Yes, I was in the shower. With shampoo in my hair. Yes.”

“And . . .” I said.

“And I heard a rap on the door,” my mom said.

“You thought Dad was tapping the bathroom door to show that we were back.”

“You are right.”

“But,” said I. “We were at the room door. Dad had forgotten the key. You had to . . .”

“Yes. I had to climb out of the shower . . .”

“With shampoo hair dripping . . .”

“Yes, with . . .”

“You were dripping water all over the tile floor. It looked pretty funny.”

“Dangerously slippery tile,” she reminded.

“Still, it was pretty funny. Until I hear you say that bad word.”

“You heard that?”

“We did. We didn’t have the key but we brought you a flower from our walk. I think that helped,” said  Scooter.

“It did.”