Since it was going to be a short driving day, we took our time packing up and loading the car. We checked on the complimentary breakfast, and apparently it had already made up its mind: “Nope. Go somewhere else.” We took the hint.
Fortunately, Black Bear Diner was right around the corner, and it looked like a much better idea. Actually, it didn’t just look like a better idea—it pulled us in.
A quick stop for fuel—the last one, I hope, at more than $6.00 a gallon—and we were underway. Heading east in the early morning isn’t much fun, especially when you’re fighting the rising sun on one side and a parade of semi-trucks on the other. Neither one was particularly interested in making our morning any easier.
On any drive, you’re going to find beautiful scenery, and you’re going to find ho-hum. Today was definitely a ho-hum kind of day—miles and miles of open space filled with...well, more ho-hum. No lakes or rivers running through the landscape. No trees of any sort. Just a vast, tan wilderness stretching as far as we could see.
On the plus side, Interstate 40 was a pleasant drive, with little traffic other than trucks. Lots of trucks. But at least they were moving, and so were we.
Along the way, we passed a few small communities—actually, “micro-communities” might be a better description—with names like Pisgah, Argos, and Java. Java? Coffee, perhaps? Most seemed to consist of little more than a name, a place where buildings may have once existed, and a whole lot of open space.
Just past Needles, we crossed the Colorado River and were back in Arizona! From there, it was literally downhill—or at least it looked that way on the map—as we turned south onto Arizona 95, heading for Lake Havasu City.
We had never been this way before, so I was hoping to drive across the London Bridge and maybe get a photo to post. Somehow, though, I missed the turn. And this was not the day to turn around and go looking for it. The bridge would have to wait for another trip.
The bridge really did once stand in London, although the story that it was auctioned off because it was sinking into the river isn’t quite true. In fact, the City of London sold it in the late 1960s because the bridge could no longer handle the demands of modern traffic.
It was taken apart stone by stone, shipped across the Atlantic and across the country, and painstakingly reassembled in Lake Havasu City. So this really is the original London Bridge—not a replica. That makes it quite a bit different from the three replica lighthouses that dot the lakeshore.
The drive along the highway provided one sobering experience: the reminders of lives lost along the way. We saw three bicycle memorials beside the road, clearly marking places where cyclists had been killed. We also passed seven crosses, each one marking where a life had been taken on that stretch of highway. It was a reminder that even an otherwise ordinary road can have dark side.
The rest of the drive was pretty straightforward, except for the occasional concern from Barb that I was taking the wrong road. Somehow, I managed to find Interstate 10, and from there we spent a good hour jockeying for position with the seemingly endless line of semi-trucks heading east from China.
Before we were even home, Barb was already planning our next trip. But for now, we’ll just look back on the fun we had, the great meals along the coast, and the wonderful drive we enjoyed over the past ten days.
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