It's now late October, 2017 and after returning from Northern Minnesota, Canada, and the Lake Superior side of Wisconsin, we made a semi local (250 miles) jaunt over to the West side of Arizona, on the California border, to a place everyone's heard of, but nobody seems to know where it is, Lake Havasu. We thought we'd better get over there before the annual snowbird invasion happens. When we pulled in to the area, it was pretty quiet, and we had no trouble getting a good spot in a nice RV park. Let the exploration begin. Here are some first impressions. This is not a place where you stop
on the way to somewhere else. It's not really
close to anything. The landscape's very interesting...desert, mountains, and lots of water. The lake was formed when The Colorado river was dammed in the 1930's. Yes, it
is the place where a fellow named Robert McCulloch, in the 1960's, spent millions to have The London Bridge moved there. It's the centerpiece of his planned communi-
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| McCulloch & Wood |
ty, Havasu City. He, along with the city planner, a fellow named C.V. Wood Jr., are immortalized on a statue near the bridge, in a town now with a population of about 80,000. It's actually bizarre and out of place to just see it there in the desert, crossing The Colorado River instead of The Thames.
After looking around at the shops and eating places near the bridge, we headed towards the older part of town that could be called the closest thing to a downtown. It's filled with more shops, services, and restaurants, and we really didn't feel the need to try too many of them since they mostly seemed touristy. We did try one place that, at least, looked kind of interesting, called The Red Onion. But it also turned out to confirm our suspicions and was just ok at best (the poor service ruined an otherwise average meal). The only place that turned out to be a winner was called Cha Bones. It's a very nice looking venue with better than average food. We finally ventured out for a happy hour there and ordered a couple of items that were really good.
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| Inside Cha Bones |
Oh well, sometimes it's great to have a good galley in the coach and practice our RV cooking skills.
Another interesting point to the area is the mix of homes. There's anything from little track houses to pretty upscale RV homes (this place is seriously an RV centrist area), to multi million dollar estate type realty with mountain and lake views. We took one side trip down to Parker, where the dam is. It's a pretty ride along The Colorado, but there's not much in the town except for a nice casino and some cool houses right on the water. To sum up Lake Havasu, would be that it's understandable why the area has grown. It has a lot of physical beauty, it's not really on the map so therefore a good place to insulate oneself from much of the outside world, and there is enough infrastructure around to keep you from getting bored. All in all, some good reasons for why McCulluch must have had the foresight to say, "If I build it, they'll come."
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| Another bridge view with walking paths |
