“London Bridge is Falling Down”

“Falling Down, Falling Down”

“London Bridge is falling Down”

“My Fair Lady”

This is an old English Nursery Rhyme, dating back to the Middle Ages – “Ok, So What”

“What has that got to do with our RV Trip”

“Well, nothing directly, but it’s a good start to this bit of the Blog”

“Oh, go on then, if you must!”

“Right, ok”.

When we decided that we were going to do an extended RV Trip of the Colonies, we contacted Buckingham Palace, to see if there was anything special, they wanted us to check, whilst we were over there?

They said, that if we were going anywhere near Arizona, then back in the 1960’s, some American, with more money than sense, had bought the Old London Bridge and transported it over there, to use it as a tourist attraction, because there was nothing else in his home town worth going to see!!!

So, if we were going to Arizona, could we pop over to where the bridge is, to see if it was being looked after?

Sure, we said, where is it?

To which, Her Majesties spoke-person said “We don’t know, but surely it won’t be that hard to find?”

So, that was the dilemma we found ourselves in – Her Majesty wanted us to do something, so we were duty bound to try and do it!!!!!!!

Well after a lot of searching around, we eventually found that the Old London Bridge, was being kept in a place called ‘Lake Havasu City’ and NO, we had never heard of it either!

But, Duty Bound, we diligently searched, Google, GPS and the Maps and found it!

Just about 20 miles off our intended route along I-40 – How’s that for a coincidence?

Not knowing just how big this place was, we pulled into a Filling Station with Truck Parking and unhitched the car, so that we could drive the 20 miles down to Lake Havasu and the 20 miles back in a smaller vehicle.

When we got there, we found that they had looked after it ‘fairly well’, they just had to do a few repairs to the sides, for damage caused when some Colonials, driving on the wrong side of the road, to what the bridge was used to, had hit the side barriers and gone over, into Lake Havasu – whoops!

So, fortunately for us, we were able, to report back to Her Majesty, that the Old London Bridge was being cared for and that it was indeed, proving to be a tourist attraction and bringing a little wealth into the area!!

The only real drawback we could find, was a shop advertising ‘English Fish and Chips’, but on sampling them for Lunch, we found that they were far below English Fish and Chip standard.

We had a word with the proprietor, who promised to improve his fare!

On a more serious note, a guy called Robert McCulloch, bought the bridge in 1967 to put it up as a tourist attraction, for a brand new, Retirement Town he was building, called Lake Havasu City, to give it some focus and what a clever move it was, as the bridge does indeed, bring in loads of tourists, who of course spend a lot of money in the area – clever guy!

Ok, back to the RV to finish todays journey to the Mojave National Preserve and the Needles KOA RV Park and on the way we pass from Arizona into California!!

Form this point on the trip, we will be angling north towards the Canadian Border!

“What time is it?” “About 5 o’clock somewhere” “Ok, Fill those glasses”, “Don’t worry, I have done it already”, “Yum, Yum”