Road Trip: Day Four

Corona CA to Scottsdale AZ

Scott and I both woke up at about 9am and went outside to grab some stuff from the trailer. Inside Audrey was making breakfast – eggs, bacon, and cinnamon bread from a farmers market near her work. We enjoyed breakfast and fresh coffee around the table with Audrey and Crit, sharing stories about funny things we had said lately and were proud of. Crit left for work, we got ready for the day and then talked with Audrey for a bit while I trimmed Maui and Chou's claws.

I had decided it would be a fabulous idea to get a baby-gate to put behind the front seats in hopes that the cats would stay in the back half of the car unless we allowed them to join us up front. From Audrey's house we stopped at WalMart to get said gate, and were on our way at about 2pm.

I was the pilot for the day, so my wonderful co-pilot attempted baby-gate installation. Success! For all of about 10 minutes and then Chou just wriggled underneath it and was in Scott's lap again.

Mapquest said that Corona to Scottsdale should take about 6 and a half hours again, but by now we had learned that we were running about an additional hour for every Mapquest 3 to 4 hours, so did not expect to arrive in Scottsdale until 10pm or even a little later.

We filled up on gas in Indio, and again in Blythe at the recommendation of my dad. Gas was $2.88 in Indio, and $3.27 in Blythe. Just past Blythe is the Arizona border and the next gas station advertised $2.43.

We saw many beautiful and interesting sites, ranging from the sunset and a first lone cactus, to an exit sign that said "State Prison next exit. Do not pick up hitchhikers."

Once in the Phoenix metro area, we took the 101 loop north and found our motel, rolling in at about 9:30pm. We had chosen this motel from the AAA "Traveling with Your Pet" handbook and had made reservations about 12 hours previous. We checked in, hauled animals, gear, and animal's gear up to the second floor, and enjoyed a two-hour Mythbusters Movie Myths episode before heading for bed.