.
...Out here, the monotony of the scenery is broken only by the occasional terrifying thought of a breakdown...
...Fortunately, this was a false alarm, literally...One of the monitors connected to the JEEP told your Captain that the brakes on the JEEP were dragging again (like they did in Delaware back in July)...
...Your Captain dealt harshly with the offending sensor...(unplugged it and reset it..."There, you little trouble maker...Don't make me stop the Beast again, or I'll give you something to chirp about!!!"...)
...Travel planning tip: If you ever find yourself in the difficult position of deciding on a vacation destination for an annoying relative, by all means set them up for a trip to Earp, California. (Yes, as in Wyatt Earp). For your planning purposes only, I conveniently present a satellite view of the greater Earp metropolitan area...
...This vacation paradise is, as one can readily see, largely undiscovered. So undiscovered in fact that Earp, California has the distinction of having its post office located the farthest away of any county seat in the United States...Residents of Earp ( assuming there are any) wanting to go to the post office to drop off Aunt Corinthia's birthday card will travel 220 miles one way to attend to this little errand...
...Moving right along, we mercifully crossed the Colorado River near Parker Dam in Parker, Arizona...
...The Parker Dam...
...As I'm sure all you erudite readers already know, the Parker Dam, like the the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas, plugs up the Colorado River. THIS dam created LAKE HAVASU...
...Lake Havasu is approximately 31 miles long and was created in 1938...
...Satellite view of Lake Havasu...prominent feature here is desert...
...Now here's where the story gets a bit weird, so pay close attention...Nearly 30 years after the lake was formed, it was still surrounded by barren desert (The Sonora Desert, to be precise). The U.S. Government, having no further use for the land gave it back to Arizona. (Now THAT was generous...giving Arizona some more desert!!!)
...Anyway, a chainsaw engineer...(yes, I said Chainsaw Engineer) named Robert McCulloch saw an opportunity to actually develop this sandbox into a resort and retirement destination. So in the early 1960s, Mr McCulloch arranged an attractive deal with the state of Arizona to acquire thousands of acres surrounding the eastern shores of Lake Havasu in return for a commitment to attract actual people here...
...It was soon after that our chainsaw hero encountered his first obstacle...namely that nobody wanted to come to see his future resort....the usual incentives, say a free vacation in return for your attendance at tedious sales presentation couldn't work...there was no place to stay!!! Moreover, the place is so remote that the Army used it in WWII for top secret activities...What to do, what to do???
...At this point we introduce Mr Robert Plumer, the real estate man challenged by our chainsaw dude to figure out some way to get people to actually visit here so he could sell some of his new sandbox. Now, I don't know Mr Plumer personally, but I can imagine he must be quite the character, or at the very least a VERY compelling salesman!!! The reason I say this is that he persuaded our chainsaw mogul to:
1.) BUY the famous 100s year old London Bridge (the price was about $2.5 million. And this was back when 2.5 million actually was a whole bunch of money)
2.) Dismantle it
3.) Mark each of the stones
4.) Put all the disassembled and marked stones on a ship
5.) Sail this pile of rocks across the Atlantic to the Port of Houston, TX
6.) Place his "bridge kit" aboard bunches of trucks
7.) Drive the "bridge" to the newly named Lake Havasu City (established 1963)
8.) Painstakingly reassemble the bridge like a very heavy jigsaw puzzle.
..."If we do this", said Mr Plumer, "they will come". So complete was his desperation that Robert McCulloch actually agreed to this preposterous scheme...
...The London Bridge (still in London in this painting)... At one time, over 8,000 people crossed the bridge daily...
...Now let's put that same bridge in the desert...
...Ok, Cletus, where did you put rock # 75689???
...reconstruction begins in the desert...notice that the bridge crosses NO WATER...only sand...
...Simply dig a trench....voila, we have a proper bridge...
...Silly as it seems, people DID start coming...Some stayed and now Lake Havasu City boasts a population of over 52,000 suntanned souls...
...Now get this...Lake Havasu has become one of the top Spring Break destinations in the United States...heck, Los Angeles kids even drive through Earp to get here...
...Typical Spring Break gathering...(Your Safety Conscious Skipper is APPALLED that no one in this photo is wearing a life preserver...ah, kids today...)
...We did a bit of touristy sightseeing...
...The Commodorable on the bridge...
...View of the bridge from the local Tequila dispensary...
...As you can see, the bridge is a perfect fit over the river...it should be, the river was created after the bridge was built...
...Now, my friends, before you sell your current homestead and call the Mayflower Moving Van guys to relocate you and the loved ones to this newly minted oasis, know this...the average temperature here is FIRE!!! Yeah, yeah it's a dry heat, we know...Seriously, the Westie posse couldn't walk on the black pavement here...
...Well, boys and girls, that's it for Lake Havasu...check out Chapter 44 in a few days for our trip to the Grand Canyon's South Rim...
Glad the breakdown was nothing! Would you believe I saw a motor coach - same size as yours pulling a full length two stall horse trailer. Holy smokes what is the legal limit for the length of things you can tow behind a coach. Inquiring minds want to know!
ReplyDeleteSafe travels my friends.