About Lake Havasu City (July 25, 2015)

Lake Havasu City is a town in northwest Arizona, located right on the Colorado River, which makes it a huge vacation destination. Lake Havasu City was founded in the early 1960's by Robert McCulloch. He had a dream of turning this area into a resort town. He purchased the London Bridge, which as we all know, was falling down and moved it to Lake Havasu City, where he had it put back together piece by piece. He bought seven or eight arches of the bridge, and was able to reassemble five arches between Lake Havasu City and (what is now) the island. The island used to be a peninsula, but after reassembling the bridge in Lake Havasu City (with mounds of dirt under each arch of the bridge to hold them up while they did the reassembly), McCulloch had a trench dug under the bridge between the city and the end of the peninsula creating what is now known as the channel. The London Bridge connects the town to the new island after the channel was dug. The London Bridge opened for the first time in Lake Havasu City on October 10, 1971, and has been a great attraction for the city ever since.

A view of the bridge from Bridge Water Channel

 Across the lake from Lake Havasu City is the Havasupai Indian Reservation in south eastern California. It has housing and a Casino/restaurant, and I think that's about it.

According to the 2010 census, Lake Havasu City is a town of about 52,500 residents. The annual mean temperature is 75.6 degrees F, but Lake Havasu City holds the all-time record high temperature in Arizona history of 128 degrees F.  We have been there when it was 123 degrees F which is really hot, but luckily it's a dry heat. The humidity can be well below 10% during the heat of the day in the summer months. 

It has just about everything you could need for a fun vacation, or even to live. It has a mall on the north side of town, with a huge array of shops, but it really doesn't have a lot of high end shopping. For high end shopping you would need to go to Las Vegas (about 2 hours north), Phoenix (about 4 hours east) or Los Angeles (about 4 1/2 hours west). It also has a lot of fun restaurants to choose from including fast food, and many sit down restaurants.

There are very few subdivisions in town. Older homes and newer homes of all sizes are interspersed throughout the town. Many of the houses in the town are owned by part-time residents who come into town for vacations or long weekends. Most houses, whether owned by full or part time residence have lots of toys in the garage; boats, sand rails, ATVs, jet skis, paddle boards, kayaks, etc. It is definitely a town where people come to play. And you never know what you might see.

An old military plane flying over the lake

A rowing team practicing

A float plane practicing it's take-offs and landings

An ultralight flying over the lake

Many of the full-time residents make their living based on tourism or boating related activities.  And everyone enjoys the gorgeous sunsets!

I think this speaks for itself!