In 1964, Robert McCulloch, chairman of McCulloch Oil Corporation, founded a retirement development project on the east shore of Lake Havasu, a large reservoir on the Colorado River in northwestern Arizona, some two hours’ drive from Las Vegas.

The one problem with McCulloch’s plan is that estate agents can’t attract prospective buyers because the land is far from population centres and has a very hot and arid climate.

McCulloch’s estate agent learns that London Bridge, spanning the River Thames in England, is no longer sound enough to support the increased load of modern traffic crossing it every day and is for sale. He convinces McCulloch to buy it and bring it to the Lake Havasu area to attract prospective land buyers.

In 1967, the bridge is dismantled, its facing stones are each numbered and transported to a quarry in Devon in England where some five to nine inches (12 to 22 cm) are sliced off many of the original stones.

The bridge arrives in pieces at the Port of Long Beach, California and is transported overland to Lake Havasu City, where re-assembly begins.  On September 23, 1968 London’s Lord Mayor, Sir Gilbert Inglefield, lays the foundation stone.

Today, London Bridge in Lake Havasu City is a reinforced concrete structure clad in the original masonry of the bridge that once spanned the River Thames in London. 

Reconstruction of London Bridge in Arizona takes over three years and the project is completed in late 1971. The bridge links an island in the Colorado River to the main part of Lake Havasu City.

We are on the move today from Tucson to Bullhead City in Arizona. En route, we stop in the quirky little town of Quartzite, Arizona to visit T-Rocks, a geologists’ mecca!

Oh my, what an amazing selection of raw and polished crystals, minerals, fossils, petrified wood, glass and so much more! One can purchase Geodes that can be cracked for you on site!

Not that we are shopping for anything, but we buy a piece of Madagascar petrified wood which was once-living wood which has now been turned to stone. When the wood is buried under mud, sand and volcanic ash, solutions dissolved in the groundwater slowly infiltrate its cells, and by a complex chemical process which takes place over millions of years, the wood is replaced by the mineral quartz.

We also buy a Trilobite fossil! A Trilobite was a bug-like animal with a soft segmented body held together by an external skeleton. It roamed the oceans for over 270 million years but became extinct during the Paleozoic Era, 240 million years ago!

The quirky part of Quartzite is found in the Reader’s Oasis Bookstore which is owned by an ageing hippy gentleman called Paul Winer who wanders around his shop, and the town, wearing only a thong! As we were in the motor home and towing the jeep, we were unable to get into the car park to visit and so, no photo … perhaps that is a good thing!

Nothing like a piece of fossilized dinosaur dung to adorn your home!

There are 315 Tiffin motor homes parked at this rally and by noon tomorrow we all need to have left! This fact worries us!

When we arrived, there was a team of folks, volunteers like us, who directed us to where we needed to park and then guided Mike to enable him to park in our allocated space. It was not easy and he certainly did a great job. Tomorrow morning, there is no one directing anyone and it causes us concern because we are packed in to every available space there is!

In asking folks how it works, everyone just smiles, knowingly, and says that it happens, like magic! All 315 owners needs to pull the motor home out of its various space, move to somewhere where we can attach our tow vehicles, before finally pulling out of the fairgrounds and heading to our next location.

Perhaps by tomorrow night, I too will be a Houdini believer … I’ll let you know!

I have spent a few days taking photographs of the motor homes that are parked everywhere here at the Pima County Fairgrounds in Tucson, Arizona. Without a drone, or renting a helicopter, I am unable to depict the true scale in one image, but below are several not so good photos to attempt to show what 315 motor homes, each with a tow vehicle, looks like parked at one site. The photos certainly don’t do justice to the scale of the operation so please add in a heaped tablespoon of imagination!

When Mike and I signed up for this Tiffin rally, we also signed up as volunteers to help the organizers in whatever way they needed assistance – parking, registration, transportation, seminar assistant, to name a few tasks.

Those wishing to volunteer are asked to work up to three hours a day and to have a skill set that includes: the physical ability to walk, bend, sit and stand as necessary during their given shift, strong communication skills, patience, flexibility and kindness!

Predominantly, Mike and I have been assigned as golf-cart drivers, ferrying people around the vast Pima County Fairgrounds just outside Tucson in Arizona where the rally is taking place. Rides to lunches and dinners are very popular for the 30 minutes before and after meal times and especially for this rally as the weather has been unseasonably cold and windy, and folks attending are retired and their physical fitness spans a wide spectrum!

But, it has been great fun and a wonderful way to meet so many different people, all of whom have been absolutely delightful. Needless to say, once my accent is noticed it creates an immediate focus and the subject changes to impersonations of how the English talk, the Royal Family, Benny Hill and the real value of roundabouts!

Me at work today. My fellow volunteers tease me mercilessly about driving the golf cart on the wrong side of the road!

The basis of this latest road trip is focussed around our attending a Tiffin motor home rally in Tucson, Arizona.

What is a Tiffin rally! Well, Tiffin is the manufacturer of our motor home. It is a family run business based in Red Bay, Alabama which started back in 1972. Part of the lifestyle for motor homers, is the people and the camaraderie of those whom you meet along the way. And, way back when, the Tiffin team decided to organize an event, invite Tiffin motor home owners to come together, learn something through attending seminars, make new friends through social events and offer owners the opportunity to spend time with like-minded folks.

The idea took off and today, the Tiffin team organize three rallies each year, one out west (aka this one in Tucson), one in the centre and one in the east of the US. Each rally accommodates 300 Tiffin motor homes and the event runs from Monday to Friday. Here’s an amazing fact, this rally sold out in 2.5 minutes! Imagine that! Three hundred motor home owners signed up the minute the rally website went live and in under three minutes it was sold out!

After dinner tonight, we were entertained by an English Father and Son duo, Terry & Nick Davies – pictured, whose stage name is the Piano Men Generations, and who performed a medley of songs by Elton John and Billy Joel. They were absolutely fantastic, and the Dad, Terry, doubles as a comedian!

The Colossal Cave Mountain Park on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona is one of the largest dry caves in North America, which maintains a pleasant seventy degrees Fahrenheit temperature all year round. Located in the Rincon Mountains at an elevation of 3,700 feet, the entrance commands a panoramic view of the Sonoran Desert.

The cave is not fully explored, but scientists estimate that there are at least 39 miles of natural tunnels inside the cavern. Due to the enormously complex, three-dimensional maze, it took over two years to map the two miles of passageways that are fully explored.

Groundwater seeping through limestone formed the cave. Over millions of years, stalactites, stalagmites, columns and draperies formed slowly from water dripping from the ceiling. As the climate became more arid, the cave gradually dried up. Today, Colossal Cave is “dry” and the formations are no longer growing.

According to legend, the cavern served as a bandit hideout twice in 1887, after two train robberies. According to rumour, up to sixty thousand dollars were hidden away in the cave and later retrieved by one of the robbers.

The cave was officially discovered in 1879, but artifacts and soot-blackened ceilings testify to use by prehistoric cultures.

Water flow that over millions of years now resembles draperies or curtains!

Desert extremes would wither most plants, but not cactus. Able to withstand infrequent rain and harsh temperatures, each employs its own strategy for survival.

Gently sloping alluvial hills below the Tucson Mountains in Arizona create the ideal habitat for 25 different species of cactus which grow here, the most famous of which is the saguaros, that grow in stands so dense that they’re known as cactus forests.

Saguaros grow very slowly at first – an inch or so during their first six to eight years. It may be 70 years before they sprout branches, known as arms. They reach full height, 40-50 feet, at about 150 years and some may reach 75 feet with long, woody ribs which support their multi-tonne bulk.

Seedlings have the best chance of survival when sheltered by “nurse trees” like mesquite, ironwood or palo verde. As rain falls, the saguaros cactus collect water through shallow roots extending about as far outward as the main trunk is tall. As the cactus soaks-up water, accordion-like pleats in its trunk and arms expands to allow for storage in the spongy flesh.

In early summer, cream-coloured flowers appear and white-winged doves, lesser nosed-bats, honeybees and moths feed on the nectar and pollinate as they go. In July the saguaros produce deep-red fruit providing food for both animals and humans.

Me at the Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona pictured with a saguaro cactus that is 102 years of age! 

Pictured left: a Fish-hook barrel cactus; right: a Chain-fruit cholla cactus, part of the cactus family of the Saguaro National Park which was an absolute delight to visit.

The gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a 30-second shoot-out between lawmen and members of a loosely organized group of outlaws called the Cowboys that took place on October 26, 1981 in Tombstone, Arizona. The gunfight is generally regarded as the most famous showdown in the history of the American Wild West.

In 1879, Tombstone was a rapidly growing frontier mining town after silver had been discovered. In the same year, three brothers, James, Virgil, and Wyatt Earp, together with their wives, arrived in the town where they invested in several mining claims and water rights.

The gunfight was the result of a long-simmering feud over the control of Tombstone with Cowboys Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury on one side, and town Marshal Virgil Earp, Special Policemen Morgan and Wyatt Earp and temporary policeman Doc Holliday on the other side.

It began in the 18-foot wide lot behind the O.K. Corral next to C.S. Fly’s Boarding House and Photo Studio. When the shooting began, unarmed Cowboy Ike Clanton ran into Flys and kept on running. In the next 30 seconds nearly 30 shots were fired. The three Cowboys who stood their ground were all killed. Tom McLaury, who may have been unarmed was cut down by a blast from Doc Holliday’s shotgun. Frank McLaury stumbled onto Fremont Street and was shot in the head. Morgan Earp shot 19-year-old Billy Clanton.

Both Virgil and Morgan Earp were badly wounded while Doc Holliday suffered a superficial hip wound. Only Wyatt Earp walked away unscathed.

If you’re looking for a good western film to watch, check-out “Tombstone” staring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer, who delivers a stonking performance as Doc Holliday. We re-watched it ahead of our visiting Tombstone!

The Cunningham Hearse which was kept ready to transport the deceased in style to Boothill Cemetery in Tombstone.

Mike and I attended a re-enactment of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral when we visited Tombstone. It was cheesy (and very wet), but great fun and the gunshots were very loud!

As we journey West, we pass through Fort Stockton in Texas where I spent very many happy days during my working career. Tumbleweed blows across the roads, scraggy-looking sheep raise their heads above the sage brush and Roadrunners make a fleeting appearance.

The scenery in this part of the State is stunningly beautiful. Magnificent mesas line the horizon conjuring up images of old western films starring Clint Eastwood sitting on his horse surveying the landscape, a cigarillo protruding from the corner of his mouth!

The road from Fort Stockton to El Paso in Texas is a known drug-smuggling route;  from El Paso to Tombstone in Arizona it is used for both drug and people smuggling. There are regular border patrol unit stops where truck drivers have their vehicles inspected, and border patrol cars sit on the roadside ready to stop any vehicle which they think is suspicious.

After Fort Stockton, our route to Arizona closely follows the border with Mexico. Across the Rio Grande river from El Paso lies the city of Ciudad Juarez, notorious for violence between rival drug cartels. Today, the murder rate in “Juarez” as it is known locally, is way down from its peak of 8-10 per day. Now, it is fewer than 10 per week with armed robbery and aggravated assault popular gang activities!

Needless to say, we don’t stop but just keep driving, doors locked and Poppy-dog keeping guard, when she’s awake! We do pass through one border patrol stop but they wave us through!

Wind turbine blades loaded onto a train between Fort Stockton and El Paso. 

A border patrol stop just outside Tombstone, Arizona.

For us, the big deal in heading out on a road trip, is that it takes so long from where we live to get out of Texas! The state is so vast, that we add two days of serious driving before we really begin our journey. That said, there are some very pretty parts of the State and it is always a pleasure to enjoy the scenery as we motor along.

And, that is so true of this road trip where we plough along the I-10 West (Interstate/Motorway) all day long. Today will be our longest day of driving covering some 600 miles and whizzing through Texas towns of Hempstead, Brenham, Paige and Johnson City, a town which rose to fame after one of its residents, Lyndon B. Johnson, became the 36^th President of the United States.

Known as LBJ, Johnson moved to Johnson City at age five. After graduating from Johnson City High School, he enrolled at the Texas State Teacher’s College where he excelled in campus politics and earned a teaching certificate.

In 1936, from the front porch of his family’s home in Johnson City, LBJ announced his campaign for a vacant seat in the United State House of Representatives. He went on to serve six terms in the House until 1948 when he was elected a United States Senator.  Lyndon quickly rose in the ranks of the Senate and became Senator Majority Leader until his nomination and election as Vice President in 1960.

Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, LBJ was sworn in as President. Some six years later, the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Site was created by Congress and included the president’s boyhood home and ancestral cabin of his grandparents.

Lyndon B. Johnson died of a heart attack at his beloved LBJ Ranch; he was 64 years of age.