Lake Havasu
28 March 2024
It’s an exhausting slog from the Hoover Dam to Kingman. Seventy-five miles against a strong wind that occasionally gusts causing the bike to list visibly, like a stricken galleon.
The other side of Kingman is possibly the most famous stretch of Route 66 known as the Oatman Highway and very entertaining it is too. It resembles the English Lake District as these are steep, rickety roads with camber that goes this way and that before descending into the town of Oatman itself. For years a Ghost Town, it has been partially revived but still has mules roaming down Main Street. There are also cowboys staging mock gunfights for the visitors who are asked to donate to a local charity.
I would tell you its purpose but what the compere has done with the English Language is unforgivable and he’s impossible to decipher, but I chip in $5 regardless.
From Oatman to Lake Havasu is sixty-miles of Arizonian desert. Havasu is home to the ‘old’ London Bridge, bought by the town in 1969 at auction for $2.4 million and then re-built, brick by brick, at a cost of some $4 million. Very fine it looks too - much prettier than the one that replaced it.
Contrary to British folklore, the town didn’t buy it thinking it was Tower Bridge, nor is it built in the middle of a desert, going from nowhere to nowhere. The thing is, the town didn’t even exist until 1965 and the founding fathers wanted to make a bold statement to put it on the map. Buying the bridge was that statement. It was a good move too, as Havasu is now a thriving leisure and retirement town for middle-income Los Angelenos.
The Barley Brothers Brewery & Grill is on the Bridgewater Channel side with a great view that I’m admiring while ordering. My neighbour at the bar hears my accent and introduces himself and his wife. A now familiar routine plays out: Where y’from? What’y doin? followed by back-slaps and handshakes when I explain the scale of my journey.
The ubiquitous protocol of the middle-class the world over is fastidiously observed as he asks me what I do for a living to which I respond and reciprocate:
“Oh, I’m in the movies”
Interesting. What do you do in the movies?
“I’m a performer. In Adult”
He looked more like a lawyer with a generous expense allowance but, registering my surprise, he explains the industry caters for all tastes.
We’re joined at the bar by a good-looking, younger couple in sleeveless T-shirts and baseball caps. Tanned and toned, they are clearly no strangers to the gym. They order drinks while waiting for their takeaway pizza to be prepared. I’m introduced and a chorus of polite-mannered, ”Hi, how you are yooo?” and “Soo nace to meet yooo” ensues, and they chat to his wife while our conversation continues.
“They’re in the business too. But you probably guessed that”
Have you worked with them?
“Sure. Many times. You look shocked man. Go on, ask me anything you want?”
Lamely, I ask if there are ever some days he doesn’t fancy going in to work?
“Oh sure, like anybody”
So what do you do?
“Go in anyway. Like you probably do”
What does your wife think of it?
“She doesn’t much like it so we don’t talk about it too often”
He’s an odd sort. Like many who make their living rooting around at the base of Maslow’s Pyramid of Human Needs, he oscillates between over-simplification (“It’s just a job; like any other job”) and gnomic psychobabble (“I try to connect with what is in everyone with my performance”).
We say our goodbyes and they are replaced by a Mexican couple with their son, Fabian.
I comment that it’s an interesting name and ask if they chose it to honour the liberal, British political organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and equality via gradualist means or the 1960s pop singer?
Neither, it turns out. They just liked the name but are now delighted to learn it has an historical resonance.
The boy, less so, as Mom has just told him he needs to research the Fabian Society on the internet before bed.
Lake Havasu is a town of surprises.
