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| Talking Story with Arlo |
A Day Date with Doris Day:
The Daredevil Dame of the Desert
By Arlo Agogo
Picture this: a sun-scorched Sunday afternoon in the sprawling desert, where the horizon shimmers like a mirage and the air hums with the promise of adventure.
My name’s Arlo, a rugged, beatnik soul with a penchant for dusty trails and a Volkswagen dune buggy that’s as scrappy as I am.
My 1875cc motor growls with just enough grit to keep up with my day date, the one and only Doris Day—not the Hollywood starlet, mind you, but a proper British gal with a devilish grin, a 2000cc dune buggy that purrs like a panther, and a knack for turning a simple day date into a heart-pounding, romantic escapade.
Doris and I have been tearing up the desert together for months now, our dune buggies kicking up clouds of sand and stories from Vegas car shows to secret riverbank campsites.
Her '67 Vee Dub Buggy, a sleek, yellow beast, like mine gleams under the sun, polished to perfection—a stark contrast to my mud-splattered, battle-scarred rig, which she teases me about relentlessly.
“Arlo, love,” she’ll say in that crisp, posh accent, “did you drive through a swamp or is that just your buggy’s new skincare routine?”
I fire back, “Doris your ride’s so pretty, I’m surprised it doesn’t demand a mirror to admire itself!”
Our banter’s as much a part of our adventures as the trails we blaze.This particular Sunday, we hatched a plan over the phone, our voices crackling with excitement like static on an old radio.
The mission: a 100-mile round-trip odyssey from the Avi Casino parking structure in Laughlin, Nevada, to the funky Topock 66 Marina in Arizona, with a detour along the legendary Arizona Peace Trail.
I rolled up in my trusty Ford truck, kicking up gravel, only to see Doris glide in, her dune buggy looking like it just stepped off a showroom floor.
She stepped out, all elegance and mischief, her blonde hair tied back with a silk scarf, her eyes glinting like the desert sun on chrome.
“Ready for a proper adventure, Arlo?” she asked, tossing me a wink that could melt asphalt.
We decided to take her buggy—partly because it’s faster, partly because Doris loves showing off. Our route? The backroads to Topock, Arizona, with a sneaky side trip to Goose Lake and a couple of hush-hush campsites along the Colorado River.
These spots are off-limits to the general public, but Doris, ever the charmer, had sweet-talked the game warden into letting us scout them.
“He trusts me to keep an eye on things,” she said with a sly smile, leaving me wondering if she’d bribed him with her famous scones or just dazzled him with her British charm.
We roared out of town down Highway 95, the wind whipping through our hair as we hit the Goose Lake cutoff just before Needles. The desert stretched out before us, vast and untamed, a canvas of golden dunes and jagged mountains.
Our first stop was Topock 66 Marina, a gem of a spot perched on the Colorado River, where the water sparkles like a sapphire and the restaurant serves breakfast fit for a king.
The chef, a burly guy with a penchant for flamboyant plating, whipped us up towering stacks biscuits and gravy, cheese omelets paired with mugs of coffee strong enough to wake a coma patient.
Doris and I sat on the patio, the river glinting below, trading stories and teasing each other about our upbringings—both raised in proper English families, we share a love for afternoon tea, crustless sandwiches, and poking fun at American quirks, despite being Yanks ourselves.
As we left the marina, Doris, ever the retired banker with a penchant for spoiling me, waved off my attempt to pay. “Oh, Arlo,” she said, patting my head like I was a schoolboy, “your presence is my present” I grinned, my heart doing a little flip.
There’s something about Doris—her mix of elegance and audacity, her ability to be both a refined lady and a fearless desert renegade—that gets me every time.
With our bellies full and her buggy fueled, we hit the Arizona Peace Trail, a 675-mile off-road epic that loops through Arizona’s wild heart. This segment, from Topock to Bullhead City and back to the Avi, was a mere 50 miles, but oh, what a ride.
Doris floored it, her 2000cc engine roaring like a lion, sending us screaming across the desert at speeds that made my stomach lurch and my heart sing.
She’s no stranger to the gas pedal, and she loves scaring the daylights out of me, swerving around boulders and launching off dunes like a stunt driver in a Hollywood blockbuster. “Hold on, love!” she’d shout, her laughter ringing out as we careened through a cloud of dust, my knuckles white on the roll bar.
We’d packed a picnic fit for royalty—scones with clotted cream, cucumber sandwiches, and flasks of iced tea that stayed frosty in the desert heat. Along the trail, we stopped at raucous off-roader camps, where dusty jeeps and ATVs circled like wagons, and folks grilled burgers, blasted music, and swapped tall tales.
Doris, ever the social butterfly, charmed everyone with her wit, while I played the bravado cowboy, tossing in quips that made her laugh that infectious, head-throwing-back laugh.
At one stop, a grizzled biker handed us beers and said, “You two are like Bonnie and Clyde, but with better wheels!” Doris winked at me, and I swear the desert got a few degrees hotter.
As the sun dipped low, painting the sky in hues of fire and gold, we raced back toward the Avi Casino, the trail’s twists and turns a final test of Doris’s daredevil skills.
She handled her buggy like a maestro, weaving through rocky passes with a grace that belied the chaos of the terrain.
By the time we rolled into the parking structure, our faces were caked in dust, our hair wild, and our hearts pounding with the thrill of it all.
We climbed out, leaning against her buggy, catching our breath. The desert night was creeping in, stars blinking awake above us. Doris turned to me, her eyes soft but mischievous.
“Well, Arlo, another day, another adventure.” Then, as we always do I wrap my arms around her and she leans in, planting a lingering heartfelt goodbye kiss—a kiss that was softer, longer and more passionate then the last one.
It’s our ritual, a sweet punctuation to our wild days, and it never fails to leave me grinning like a fool.
Doris Day and I are lone wolves who howl together.
Two souls who love the open road, the thrill of the chase, and the freedom of the desert. Her dune buggy might be a tad shinier and her engine a bit stronger....
It’s her spirit—equal parts proper and reckless.
She’s my cowboy-like English lady, my partner in dune-dashing, and every date with her is a story worth telling.
I drove home in my dusty truck thinking,
--her kiss is on my list of the best things in life.
Groove is in th Heart - Arlo
