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London Bridge Isn’t Falling Down

There it is in all it’s glory in Havasu, AZ

Today we started off planning to go to the Grand Canyon West Skywalk but first we had to go into town to get gas. While heading in the opposite direction I started reading about the skywalk. We thought it was just a walk along the west rim of the Grand Canyon. Apparently it is a glass walkway. Aside from the fact it is a glass walkway which I have no interest in, no pets are allowed. So we decided to head to Havasu to see the London Bridge. We had an early start as we woke to the sunrise at 5:20 am.

This was looking out our door this morning at 5:20.

Anyway, onward to Havasu. The London Bridge was purchased in 1964 by Robert P. McCulloch, Sr. for $2.46 million, then dismantled and shipped by boat from England to the U.S. It was rebuilt on a peninsula on Lake Havasu in 1971 for an additional $5.1 million. A channel was excavated under the bridge, and a replica English Village was built next to it. The opening of the London Bridge in October 1971 brought the world’s largest antique to the area, a world-famous attraction that continues to draw tens of thousands of sightseers to Lake Havasu City. ( taken from https://www.golakehavasu.com/media-room/fact-sheet/)

The last one is Chanel waiting patiently for John to come out of the visitor center.

Since we got such an early start and still had no real plans we decided to head for Peach Spring. We saw some great pictures of a river and views. So we headed there. It took about an hour and a half. We arrived in Peach Spring which in on a reservation but could not find the river. We really need to do more research before we head out because the pictures are about 2 hours from Peach Spring. You can get the natives to take you on a bus to the river to go tubing or rafting and touring. Again, that wasn’t our plan. We really like to explore on our own, take some short hikes (at least for me) and take some pictures. On our way back we stopped at Hackberry. A small town on old Rte 66 that has an old gas station turned tourist trap.

After checking it out we headed back to camp where I caught up on some blog posts and John helped our boondocker host do some repairs on something.

Later, John and I went out to eat at Sundowner’s Saloon. It was really good and the staff was really friendly.

Tomorrow we are suppose to head to Las Vegas but, we’ll see. We haven’t found a campground yet. We may stay here another day or two.

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Kingman AZ

Our arrival in Kingman, AZ came with an unexpected breakdown. Luckily for us, David Steffen saw smoke coming from the trailer tires and waved us down. We had no clue. He thought the brakes locked but John saw it was a lost bearing. David and his mom and dad, not only stayed around to help, they ran to the store for tools while John and I ran to pick up parts. This entire ordeal took about 3 hours and they stuck with us the entire time. Even offered to let John shower at their house. Wouldn’t take a dime from us. OMG how lucky/blessed can you get? I can’t believe there are such wonderful people out there.

We finally made it to our destination 3.5 hours later than anticipated but, we were safe. We had some leftover tacos and went to bed. John had trouble sleeping because he couldn’t stop thinking about the bearing because he could not get a new race or new drum when he bought the bearing. I don’t know what he is talking about but, we spent the day finding the right parts and then he actually found a place that pressed the old races out and replaces the whatever it was we needed. All John had to do was put it all back together and we were set. And now he has another set just in case. That meant we only had time to visit a couple quilt stores that day.

This was Donna’s Quilt Store and I bought this beautiful Hummingbird panel. I just told Bridget she needs to order this because I want to make more than one quilt with this. Sorry I did not take a picture of the other store. I bought fabric but from the outside I thought it looked like an antique store and thought maybe the quilt store went out of business.

We opted to order out last night but everything seemed to be chain restaurants so we got Indian food. It was a hole in the wall place, Brothers Indian that was highly recommended in Yelp and it was delicious. On the way home we had some beautiful sunset views. The last one is looking outside our camper door.

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Montezuma’s Castle and Well

This is my kind of hiking. Each sight had a 1/3 mile round trip paved surface. With the heat, I just can’t do much more. I think it has been hard on Chanel too. The ground is so hot for her and we have to stop to give her water. Some places actually have water bowls/fountains for the dogs. I am copying and pasting directly from the National Parks website. This 20 room high-rise apartment, nestled into a towering limestone cliff, tells a story of ingenuity, survival and ultimately, prosperity in an unforgiving desert landscape. It is quite impressive. For those interested in knowing more here is a link.https://www.nps.gov/moca/learn/historyculture/sinagua.htm

On the way out of Montezuma’s Castle–heading to his well we saw a sign for fry bread. We had to stop.

It was fried dough. John does this a lot when he has left over dough from pizza. It was a nice snack.

Montezuma’s Well was another 1/3 mile round trip on paved surface. There were some spiral stairs (made from the rocks) and John went down them. I stayed on top waiting to see his pictures.

After this we had time to stop at 2 quilt stores. One, Stitches, in Camp Verde and Quilters Quarters in Cottonwood.

We then went back to camp and made reservations for our next leg in Kingman, AZ. We are staying at a boondocker place there for 3 nights. Then we went to the lagoon so I could look for some birds–that avoided me at all costs. John walked Chanel around the lagoon and got pictures of ducks and ducklings and large Heron. Whatever!

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