Follow Us In Our Travels

4/06/2013, Saturday:  Mind over matter. That’s what Curt tells me. It’s been in the lower 90’s a few days this week. We’re boondocking and that means not using the air conditioning. He says just to tell myself it’s not that warm and quit looking at the thermometer.  I have to hide the thermometer and then I won’t know how hot it actually is and I’ll feel better?  Yesterday I was dumb enough to put on my sundress and go outside and get sunburned. It’s hot enough for that.

We’re near mm 166 between Parker and Lake Havasu City, AZ. There’s an area for free  BLM boondocking here, I believe called Standard Wash, or The Steps, (not sure which) and than again closer to Lake Havasu City another couple of areas. They’re right off of the highway. This one has some hills around it and we can see the Colorado River and California across the highway. (The Colorado River is the state border.) North from Parker it’s gotten much more hilly, especially on the California side.  Haven’t seen a snake here, thank goodness. There are lizards and in my logic that means there are no snakes because the lizards would have been eaten.  We’re very watchful though, logic or not. This area has a lot of 4-wheelers. The other areas we were at did too, but the areas were so big that you really didn’t pay attention unless it was really windy and the dust came over. This area is small and you notice all traffic.  We’re near Cattail Cove State Park, which we’ll go too when we need to dump tanks and fill water. We do get cell service here, but no TV at all. Last night we were able to watch Survivor on-line. Other than being able to catch local news and weather, I really don’t miss it. And after all, the weather is “mind over matter”, right?

We went into Lake Havasu City Wednesday, toured the London Bridge and drove around. Of course we had to find Lowe’s and Home Depot, but they didn’t have the steel Curt needed. He wants to build another battery box area so we can add more batteries for more solar. Lake Havasu City is very much a tourist town, depending on the weather and their water sports. All along Highway 95 are businesses for boating, RV, ATV’s, etc. The houses along the highway are very impressive. Either Lake Havasu City is a wealthy town, or the old houses are hidden away from the main highway. Curt noticed that most of the houses have their air conditioners on the roof; that’s something we haven’t seen before. At the London Bridge area is also the visitor’s center and little tourist shops. There are tours by boat, helicopter, air balloons, airplanes. Some go all the way to the Grand Canyon. They have golf courses, parks, hiking, gold club and even a boomerang club.

London Bridge history: In 1968 Robert P. McCulloch (of McCulloch Oil) bought the London Bridge for $2,460,000. (It was up for bids.)  Each block was numbered before the bridge was taken apart, and then shipped overseas through the Panama Canal to California and trucked to Arizona. It was reconstructed at Lake Havasu City, AZ. (McCulloch was also the founder of Lake Havasu City.) It was built on land, which was then dug out to connect to the lake. The total cost of the bridge was $5.1 million. The entrance gate was part of Witley Court in Worcester, England. The vintage lamps on the London Bridge are made from the melted down cannons of Napoleon Bonaparte’s army.  The bridge is rumored to be haunted. For years visitors have sighted the figures of a British police bobby and a woman in black.

Lake Havasu has 22 lighthouses. Each one is an actual navigational beacon for boaters on Lake Havasu and meets all U.S. Coast Guard requirements. All but one lighthouse is 1/3 scale replicas of actual U.S. lighthouses. Eleven are accessible by land. We saw 2 of them; Vermillion, OH and Split Rock, MN replicas.

We put up our hummingbird feeder again, simply because when we got here, before we even shut off the engine, we had a hummingbird flying around our windshield. Think they’re used to being fed?  It’s not near as busy as the other places we’ve been, and these seem smaller. 

I’ve found a good use for magnetic advertising; you know, the ones you get that have calendars or advertising on them like a business card?  They’re probably about 2 x 4, 4 x 4. I peel off the advertising and cut up some pictures of our granddaughters from their calendar and tape them on the magnets and put them on my fridge. I could have gotten lots of the magnets at the RV tent show in Quartzsite in January if I would have thought of that then.