Buses By the Bridge

Friday, 18 January 

We spent a pleasant night at the Plomosa Road BLM site with the other OOBers.  As the sun come up over the motorhomes parked or the east, we saw that David Bott already had the fires going.  People slowly gathered in the courtyard eagerly anticipating the arrival of the donuts at 9am.

At 10am, they had a seminar on emergency illnesses.  Two representatives from SkyMed talked about the issue of “How do you get home when sick?” A topic that was of great interest to the group as about half of them are full-time, so “home” is often not even a sticks-and-bricks house.  And the other travel far from home enough (like Sprinty) to want to understand what to do.

At 11am, David Bott hosted a Tech Talk, which was a question and answer on technology for RVs.  David referred to it as a “stump David” session.  He has a lot of experience in video, audio-visual, and has amassed a lot of experience trying to replicate typical household technology while on the road.  He has also created or co-created a number of tech tools which he has sold, like an app that integrates with the spider technology on a Tiffin motorhomes allowing the owner to control most of the systems from an app.  Seems he is really good with the technology and creation, but does not have the patience for running them - always off for the next project.

After the Tech Talk, we left for Lake Havasu City, about 60 miles north, to attend the Buses by the Bridge festival (https://www.busesbythebridge.com/home).  What started as a split-window campout has turned into a Volkswagen extravaganza with VW buses coming from all over the country for a giant campout at Lake Havasu State Park.  A campout of over 500 vintage VW buses.  And they were so packed in together, it was difficult to get a photo that captured the breadth of the campout.

The “by the bridge” part is from the fact that Lake Havasu State Park is on the London Bridge Canal that goes under the London Bridge.  Yes, The London Bridge.  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.

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 begin sinking at the rate of an inch every eight years.  By 1924, the east side of the bridge was some 3 to 4 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 begin to look for potential buyers.

On April 18, 1968, the winning bid went to an entrepreneur and Lake Havasu City founder Robert P. McCullouch 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 trucked from Long Beach to Arizona, where the bridge was reconstructed in Lake Havasu city, and rededicated in a ceremony on October 10, 1971.  Total cost was about $5.1 million.

After checking the Visitor Center, we felt we had seen what was of interest to us, and headed back to Quartzsite.  We made a quick provisioning stop at Walmart in Parker.  We also stopped by the informal Roadtrek gathering at Hi Jolly Road to see how the group was doing.  We saw Jean and Danny, who provided us an update on Jean’s battery situation, and water pump repair.  It was fun to see the group and enjoy a beautiful Arizona desert sunset at the same time.