We got gas first and the cheapest according to the Gas Buddy app, was across the Colorado River in the nearby town of Mojave Valley, Arizona. It was my turn and got lucky. The gas in Arizona was at least fifty cents cheaper than a mile away in California. I paid $3.31 for a gallon. We drove back over the bridge into California and all put our heads together and decided on a grocery store. There, we could replenish our bread, drinks and other stuff while we picked up some fruit, doughnuts and juice. We got onto I-40 east. Then hit the 95 interchange south towards Lake Havasu.
I was pretty stoked I was here when we rolled into town. It was totally summer time here and it was awesome! When we got there, it was not what I expected nor what I remember from the last time I was here. It was like 1986 or something and I was 3ish.
"A young town (founded in 1963 and incorporated in 1978), Lake Havasu City was built on the spirit of possibility and innovation. It was in this spirit that town founder Robert P. McCulloch, Sr. purchased and relocated the town's showpiece, the London Bridge, from its original location in England to its new home in sunny Arizona. Located on the shores of Lake Havasu, the city attracts 775,00 visitors a year with its calm waters, beautiful beaches and desert weather with more than 300 sunny days a year. Lake Havasu City is the major population center of Mohave County, with a population of 52,527 (2010). It's easily accessible by major highways and a short drive from Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Havasu
And then I saw the In-N-Out and we were so gonna go there for lunch later even if they dropped me off and wanted to go somewhere else. But it was too early for lunch at the moment. We drove across the bridge and I took a video of it. There were quite a few people walking around. There was one cache in particular we wanted to take away from here if not more if we had the time.
We parked the car in the nearby parking lot next to the bridge and made our way down to the canal. Being seasoned cachers we sure were fooled by the elevation. We looked for London Bridge is Falling Down (GC3X144) for a good fifteen minutes when I decided it's gotta be above us near the lamp pole. We took some pictures and went and looked for it on the bridge. Found it very quickly.
We decided we wanted to walk across the bridge to the other side and use the restroom and Jim stayed behind and made sure no one stole our rental van. We took pictures of some of the plaques and statues, read up some history on the bridge and managed to make it to the restroom down below the bridge. We goofed around the area for a bit, taking pictures inside phone booths and picking up brochures inside the visitor's center.
From the brochure:
"There have been several bridges built over the same section of the Thames River. The Old London Bridge of nursery-rhyme fame was built by Peter of Colechurch between 1176 and 1209, replacing an earlier timber bridge. Due to uneven construction, the bridge required frequent repair. That bridge survived more than 600 years. One of the more grisly periods of the bridge's history was at the southern gateway between 1305 and 1660, when it was customary to display the severed heads of traitors. The head of William Wallace was the first to appear on the gate. A German visitor to London in 1598 counted over 30 heads on the bridge. The practice was finally stopped in 1660, following the Restoration of King Charles II. By the end of the 18th century, the old London Bridge needed to be replaced. It was narrow and decrepit, and blocked river traffic. Designed in 1799 by Scottish engineer John Rennie, the new London Bridge was completed in 1831. But as time passed, the new bridge began sinking at the rate of an inch every eight years. By 1924, the east side of the bridge was some three to four inches lower than the west side. The bridge had not been designed to withstand the impact of 20th century automotive traffic. In 1967, the Common Council of the City of London placed the bridge on the market and began to look for potential buyers. On April 18, 1968, the winning bid went to entrepreneur and Lake Havasu City founded Robert P. McCulloch for $2,460,000. Each block was meticulously numbered before the bridge was disassembled. The blocks were then shipped overseas through the Panama Canal to California and then trucked to Long Beach to Arizona, where the bridge was reconstructed in Lake Havasu City, and rededicated in a ceremony on October 10, 1971. Including the expense for relocation and reassembly, the total cost of the bridge was $5.1 million."
The London Bridge is Arizona's second biggest tourist attraction behind the Grand Canyon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_%28Lake_Havasu_City%29
We walked back over the bridge and no matter where I am there is always someone wearing a WSU Coug shirt or sweatshirt. I happen to see a guy wearing a WSU t-shirt walking around with his family down below. I yelled GO COUGS! and he yelled GO COUGS! back. It was awesome.
We met up with Jim at the van and decided to grab some caches around town. We found five but looked for at least ten of them. This town is terrible about cache maintenance. It was getting frustrating.
We made our way to the park next to the canal. We were next to the beach and I decided to go wading. If we didn't have plans I would have went swimming right then and there.
One in particular we thought was pretty cool. It was called The Thirsty Cache (GC2NMXQ). It took us to an ice and water store. It was weird to see a store that sold ice and water, but then again, we were in the desert. We looked everywhere. Then I got an idea. It was underneath the tray where the water drains. We didn't think to look there right away because we didn't think you could hide a cache inside there...unless the cacher got permission.
11:45 rolled around and it was just about lunch time and guess where we went? In-N-Out!! This one had a lot of retirees in it. We didn't really have to wait very long for our food at this one...in fact this one wasn't all that busy compared to others in the past. We ate our food in happiness.
We all decided we were done with Lake Havasu and hit the 95 south to Parker. We saw a lot of camping, parks, donkeys, houses along the river and columnar cacti! I've always wanted to see one in person! I finally got my chance when we arrived in Parker. There was a small park with these giant beasts towering over the edge of the grass. I needed to stop and take a picture with them. Crossing one more thing off of my list of weird stuff to do.
It was 93 degrees when we started the first part of the Heart of the Mojave cache series, this was around 1:30. It was located on the California 62. The road was very busy. Ray, Brenda and I took turns jumping and grabbed around 100 each.
There were several extra caches sprinkled into the power trail. When it was my turn, we got to a cache called Low Spot (GC24A02) and I jumped out of the car expecting a micro because no one told me it was not a part of the series. They redirected me to a tree and I immediately saw it. I think it saw me first. I grabbed it and drug it out in the open for everyone to see. This was the largest one we found the entire trip.
Around 3:00 that afternoon we grabbed 100 of the HMD caches and it was still hot.
We hit a section of road that paralleled the railroad tracks and just like Route 66, California 62 also had berms along side it. There were tons of people's names, phrases, symbols, political and religious freedom of speech. There was a I heart Jesus, an FU Obama and even a Will You Marry Me?
We continued down the road picking up a cache every tenth of a mile. We saw the first sign for the Heart of the Mojave-Needles Field Office.
We grabbed about a hundred more before reaching If The Shoe Fence, Wear It (GC1JTX2). Oh My GOD! There were shoes everywhere! I've seen some shoe trees and this totally trumps any shoe tree I've ever seen.
We were in awe and then made our way to the back corner and grabbed the cache. We really wanted to leave a shoe behind but none of us wanted to part with our own. We got back in the van and continued on. We decided to stop near the beginning of the Cadiz Trail (where we would start tomorrow). That would bring us to about 300 caches on California 62. Near where we turned around, we got lucky. I found a shoe on the side of the road to add to the fence on our way back to Parker.
We finished around 5:40 and went back to the shoe fence. We stamped the shoe several times with our Team Roadrunner stamp and hung it on the fence.
We drove the hour back to Parker and ate food at the most convenient spot we could find. That place was called Crossroads Cafe. Our waitress was very nice. I fell back into the cheeseburger and fries routine just because nothing else sounded good. The food was pretty good and all the workers seemed like they either just graduated from high school or was doing this while in high school. We paid our bills and had to find one more cache to make it an even number of caches found that day. We found one very close to our hotel.
We checked in, brought our bags upstairs, took showers, did some stuff on the internet and eventually went to bed for another long day ahead of us.
Cache total: 8,833
Next Adventure: The California Desert, Cadiz and HMD Series Caching: Day 5
No comments:
Post a Comment