Lake Havasu City, where we're staying, was a quiet little desert town until 1970 when a local businessman bought London Bridge, transported here and re-assembled it.

The area around the bridge is now restaurants and souvenir shops all trying to effect a "British" flavor, but, in fact, it's like hundreds of other tourist attractions in the country!

It was Saturday and we couldn't tour the dam, so we went for a drive in the desert. We saw lots of signs warning us to be alert for animals, and "evidence" of the feral burros in the area, but the only animals we actually saw were this coyote and this road runner!

January 2, 2006, we're back in Yuma, on our way east. While in Yuma we visited the Mexican town of Los Algodones. The part of the town we saw was basically a huge bazaar aimed at American tourists. They were selling things like prescription and non-prescription drugs, leather goods, jewelry optical and dental services and souvenirs. The merchants are pretty aggressive especially if you slow down or stop walking.

We had a great lunch in a small restaurant, sent a couple of post cards and headed back through customs to the US. Leaving Yuma we drove through the Sonoran Desert, the home of the saguaro cactus (think Taco Time) which only grows in this part of Arizona and in Mexico;

One interesting thing we saw on our way across I-8 in Arizona was a border inspection station, inside the US, not on at border crossing! Eastbound traffic on the Interstate was stopped, we were asked if we were citizens, and waved through, much the same way we were treated returning from Mexico.

On the 5th we drove to St. David, south and east of Tuscon. We're out of the desert, but the landscape is still dry and scrubby The daytime temperatures are warmer, but it is still cool at night.

We've both come down with really annoying colds. At out last stop we listened to one of those sales pitches from a membership campground (Colorado River Adventures.) Both salesmen had colds, and I guess they gave them to us as revenge because we didn't buy the membership! We're trying not to let it crimp our style or spoil our fun though.

On January 8 we headed across New Mexico to El Paso, TX. We didn't get to see much of New Mexico as it was a long drive, what we saw were the views from the highway rest stops. We made it to El Paso mid afternoon.