Lake Havasu has built up behind the Parker Dam, the lowest of 3 on the Colorado that started with the Hoover Dam in the 1930s. Despite being in a desert Havasu has thrived as a tourist resort based on water sports. The lake is more like a wide river than a lake and seems a little incongruous in its setting. However, the River Nile can’t look so different for much of it’s course. Havasu is famous as being the place which bought and re-erected London Bridge as a lure for tourism. The bridge was bought in 1968 and was finally dedicated in 1981 with a British themed resort built around it. Somehow, it all seems to work and also provides a reminder of scale around here. The original bridge spanned the Thames in London; here it merely crosses a tributary branch of the Colorado.
Refreshed by High Rev coffee we set off and I made the discovery that my Kindle will actually read to me although the voice sounds distinctly artificial. The scenery proved to be amazingly varied with more flowers and a variety of shrubs and small trees and as we climbed up onto the Arizona plateau at some 5,000 feet asl, it became greener if anything and desert scrub turned into ranching country. Mind you, cattle seemed to be few and far between.
Lunch was taken at Seligman on the old Route 66. Once the major routeway from Chicago to California it has largely been superseded by newer roads and places like Seligman resemble a ghost town surviving on the basis of tourism along the main drag. Proximity to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas means there are always people passing through. I allowed myself to be briefly seduced by the tourist attractions and even sampled the first milkshake of the trip before strolling around the side streets.
Ever since Chicago I’ve been impressed by the giant freight trains and counted one of 125 units today pulled by 4 locomotives. Here I was able to walk right onto the tracks and a monster train came through for me to photograph it!
The GRAND CANYON. Oh my! Such a shame that we live in a world where hyperbole is the norm as ‘awesome’ is truly the only word to describe it. Everything else is “not bad!” I took the helicopter trip and even though it cost $240 it was more than worth it.
Approaching the canyon over forest, mostly ponderosa and pinyon pine, which came as a surprise to me as I thought the place was a desert. The canyon suddenly opens up before you and as you seemingly float above it, you have to be awestruck. Anyway, it made me feel all emotional; the mood helped by a soundtrack which included U2’s “It’s a Beautiful Day” followed by “All Right Now” by the Free and ending with “Wonderful World”.
Flight over, we headed up to the South Rim for sunset photos. The area is well maintained with footpaths but there are hardly any barriers so people were able to scramble among the rocks over the sheer drop to get their photographs. Finally back to camp for Barbeque Ribs and an early night before a sunset start tomorrow.
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