Lake Havasu Area

Typical Desert mountains

...lots of Joshaua trees

Oct 22 Friday

We made a small detour to Cottonwood Cove, just below the Hoover Dam.  Unlike lake Meade (over 130 ft low in water level), this body was only about15 ft below normal, and it was a popular boating destination for people from Vegas.  On the way into the little beach side town we saw a huge desert turtle in the middle of the road.  It measured well over a foot long.  I stopped to persuade it to get moving off the middle of the road.  This took a few minutes and wouldn’t you believe it, I had to flag over a speeding motorist to prevent him from running over the turtle.  The only thanks I got was a fist in the air from the jerk!

Ade at Cottonwood Cove on the Colorado River, just below Hoover Dam

A pit stop on the way to LA was made at Lake Havasu—the home of London Bridge.  We have been here several times and always like staying at the State Park, on the beach, right in the middle of town (only 2 miles from London Bridge).  It is a beautiful location and we were luck to get a spot almost right on the lake.  However, Hunting is the power boat capital of USA.  Never have we seen so many large, powerful and noisy speed boats.  They are huge, often well over 30 ft long.

Even though the temperatures were in the mid 70’s in the day, I guess we were late in the year and the number of boats on the lake made it almost bearable and at night you would only hear the boats occasionally.  For a city that is only a little over 30 years old, Havasu has grown remarkably fast, with all the amenities, but with summer time temperatures in the 110 degree range, and also the countless big boats, I don’t think it would be our choice for a retirement haven—even though it has been a high choice for thousands of Americans.  With its very nice location and climate, it is the center of many very large events; for example, last year we saw the largest gathering of float model airplanes in America, and this year we went spent 3 hours at a huge antique car show (called Relics and Roots).  The show was so large that in that time we still did not see all the cars there.

I had to get this picture for Al Carter.  This Invicta with Al's reverberator was truly a party on wheels in the "old days".

Other than it’s Longdon Bridge, the other claim to fame for the town is Havasu Falls.  It is a magical oasis of cascading water just east of town—however in the past two years it has been so dry that the falls have all but disappeared.

On the third day, we headed west to L.A.