Day 6: Parker to Lake Havasu City

Today's "active recovery ride" was 43 miles at an easy to moderate pace. After breakfast at a local diner in Parker we headed back across the Colorado River and then wound our way up the west bank of the river to Parker Dam. The scenery was nice and we encountered our first wildlife of the trip - about a dozen wild burros on and around the road. Having never been along this stretch of the river I was somewhat surprised by the rather dense concentration of homes, marinas, etc. along both sides of the river. There was not much activity on the river at this time of year, but I can see where it would be very nice during the winter months.

We crossed over Parker Dam as we headed back into Arizona. The dam, which was built in the 1930's is a concrete arch-gravity dam that is 320 feet high, 235 feet of which are below the riverbed, making it the deepest dam in the world. It's architecture is very pleasing to the eye. We were greeted by 2 federal security people as we pedaled across the dam - no passenger vehicles are allowed to cross the dam and even bikes can not stop.

Even though our pace was moderate, we still arrived in Lake Havasu at about 10:30am. Since we knew the hotel was not going to be ready, several of us pedaled to a nearby bike shop and then to Starbucks - the first Starbucks stop on the trip - but certainly not the last.

We are on our own today for lunch and dinner so I went to lunch with several others at a restaurant that sits beside the London Bridge (see photo below). This is a re-construction of the 1831 London Bridge that spanned the River Thames in London until it was dismantled in 1967. The granite blocks from the original bridge were numbered and transported to Arizona to construct the present bridge which is part of the planned community of Lake Havasu City.

Tomorrow we begin heading for the higher elevations of northern Arizona. I'm getting mentally prepared for what could be one of our most challenging combinations of climbing (6000 ft), temperatures (100+) and distance (86 miles). I know we will all appreciate the cooler temperatures as we get to the higher elevations.

Steve