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  Lake Havasu City, Arizona, United States
Friday, March 14, 2008

There was 1 more unexpected event that happened to us on this journey. Our trip down south coincided with 'Spring Break'. Spring Break is a time of year when all the college guys and gals from the cold north, breaking out of their freezing winters, decide to head down south for some fun time in the sun and also to try and 'hook up'. It is everything you see portrayed in the movies and TV shows that hail from this nation. There really are parties in the hallways & rooms of the hotel. What amazed me most was how easy going and friendly people were. Guys and girls just go up to each other and introduce themselves and organize their partying for the evening as if they'd been friends for ages. If I hadn't seen this first hand I would never have believed people could be so open because I tend to find that social groups in Australia generally stick to themselves. Even though I'm getting older, and not part of the sping break event, girls would still greet you or smile when you passed them in the hallways of the hotel, such is the relaxed feel that everyone on Spring Break has

POD at London Bridge

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We don't expect Spring Break to disrupt our trip too much but it may affect our ability to get hotels in popular destinations as we haven't booked every night of our trip - flexability is programmed in to the POD travel experience. And so when leaving Las Vegas we headed to the mecca of modern engineering marvels in Hoover Dam. Now if you're thinking this is just a big dam by the side of a freeway and you can just stop the car, get out and take a photo, you would be wrong. This is America and nothing is that easy. No - of course everybody leaving Las Vegas wants to see Hoover Dam and so you line up single file to get into the area, park in the big parking lot and then pay $7 to enter the place so you can view it from the lookout. Its a bit like going to Stonehenge. You then have to walk through all these displays (which are quite interesting) on how and why the dam was built, what is hydroelectric energy and why they needed it and if you were a really big sucker you could then pay extra for a tour of the power plant. Eventually we got to the lookout and could see the majestic view of Lake Mead, the point at which it was dammed and the beautiful Colorodo river continuing its journey. After a quick pit stop to the Cafe we were on our way and half our day was gone.

Our destination was the little known place of Lake Havasu City (or Lake Have a sue as locals say it)

Hoover Dam - A modern engineering marvel

. This city on the shore of Lake Havasu is the venue to a little known trivia fact that I discovered a few years ago now that made me want to come here. It is the site of the original London Bridge. A rich guy bought the original bridge back in the 1960s and had it transported back to Arizona piece by piece where upon it was rebuilt in its original form. It is now crossing a part of the Lake. I had to explain to Vaughan that London Bridge hadn't fallen down but it was here in Lake Havasu. Checking out the bridge takes about 5 mins but you do have the option of doing a cruise of the Lake and checking out the nearby touristy english village replica. The landscape of the area is also quite striking. It looks like something out of a lunar landscape. Indeed I suggested to Vaughan that this might've been where the Americans filmed their staged lunar landings in the late 60s and 70s but he pointed out the appearance of mountains in the distance would probably have given things away as there are no mountains on the moon.

Sadly I didn't do much here, I just chilled out because the over indulgance in the local junk food had made me sickly and I needed to deal with that before moving on.

Paul.

POD WATCH - Jessie's Girl
In my sickness here there was 1 juicy bit of information I picked up whilst trying to simultaneaously watch 100 channels of cable TV. Rick Springfield, author of this early 80s hit is alive and well. He is actually here in America flogging a compilation CD on TV. A 10 CD 80s Gold Boxed set. It looks really good and of course Jessie's Girl is the featured track. So for those of you that remember, and have spent sleepness nights wandering what he is up to I believe he has found his true calling in life. Sadly for Rick he never had the success he deserved in Australia and was much more popular in the States which he now seems to have adopted as his homeland.

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