By: Eric Wang

Last Saturday, my family was feeling pretty bored, so we decided to take a trip to Prescott. We were aiming for a day at Watson Lake, and we brought our inflatable boat.

We took I-17 to SR-69, where we drove all the way to Prescott. We then took SR-89 while still within the city to Watson Lake. But then something completely crazy happened.

It turned out Prescott was having its 47th Annual Watson Lake Car Show, and the place was jam-packed with people. Luckily, we talked to the lady at the toll gate and she let us drive past a bit to make a U-turn and exit.

While driving to Watson lake, I noticed that there was a road named Willow Lake Road right around the corner of Watson Lake. I had my mom Google Willow Lake Prescott, and we found that it was bigger than Watson Lake, and just 2 miles away! So we drove there.

Along the way, we stopped at a Taco Bell and ordered lunch. We got 3 soft tacos, a cheese quesadilla, and a chicken chipotle melt.

We paid $3 to get in, and there were way fewer people there. We found a big tree, set up our three chairs, and had lunch with the Taco Bell we ordered. The tacos were actually kind of small, but it was very delicious. We then finished with some grapes.

After that, we got out the inflatable boat. We pumped it up in the hot sun, and I was sweating buckets by the time we were done. We also had to apply a lot of sunscreen, especially on our feet since they weren’t used to being out in the sun. But then we found out we forgot the oars.

My dad was like, “Well since we’re here we’re definitely going to get in the water!” My mom decided to opt out of going on the water as she wasn’t really fond of that, and she thought she would just weigh us down.

We were thinking of what to use instead, as we had no oars and thus couldn’t move. We thought of using a CD case, but then we had a eureka moment: we used our shoes. Laugh all you want, but it worked! It was very calming and comfortable out on the lake, especially when the sun was behind the clouds and when there was wind.

The wind kept blowing us towards some rocks that would block the cool breeze, so we had to keep paddling back with our shoes to get to the best spot.

My mom stayed on shore and went hiking for a bit before resting upon a giant rock. She took a lot of amazing photos of the clouds and the lake.

Afterward, we headed home. Along the way, we encountered some sun rain, which is when it rains while the sun is still shining, and we even saw a double rainbow! One of the rainbows was a complete semi circle, the other one was too faint to see if it was also complete. It was truly a spectacle.

For dinner, we stopped at Boston Market and ordered rotisserie chicken, a full baby back ribs, mashed potatoes, some spinach mince, steamed broccoli, and some mac and cheese. It was also really good, especially the baby back ribs. My dad didn’t really enjoy the sweet BBQ sauce though.

It was a great day on the lake, even though Dad’s shoes had to be sent to a lab or something to be sanitized.