Lake Havasu City, Arizona

On Monday, February 20^th, we had a nice drive on I-10 east from Indio, CA to Quartzsite, AZ, then north up Arizona State Route 95 to Lake Havasu City, AZ.

We stopped in Parker, AZ for lunch at Crossroads Café. It is one of those “breakfast is served all day” home-style cooking, family-owned places so I enjoyed their hand-breaded chicken fried steak and eggs.    

We spent four nights at Lake Havasu State Park. The campground was full the whole time we were there so we were glad we had reservations. It was a very nice state park with great views of the lake and evening sunsets.

Lake Havasu City, population 52,000, was founded in 1963 by Robert P. McCullough on the east side of Lake Havasu, formed by a dam on the Colorado River. McCullough was notable for McCullough chainsaws and also for buying the old London Bridge and moving it to Lake Havasu City.

London Bridge was purchased for $2.5 million from the city of London in 1968. It was disassembled, stones marked, shipped to Lake Havasu City, and reassembled for another $7 million U.S. The bridge was completed in October 1971.   

Lake Havasu City is very warm in June, July, August and September with average daytime highs of triple-digit temperatures. I spoke with a local resident who told me they use swamp coolers and air conditioning and many home garages are even air conditioned. He said that he and his wife escape the summer heat by taking their motorhome and head to the Midwest during the summer months.   

We arrived in Las Vegas on Friday for the next couple of weeks. We’ll hang out, then go to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and camp for a week to see the NASCAR races two weeks from today. 

Steve & Julie Cornelius