October 16-17, 2025
We woke up to see snow dusting the nearby mountaintops — which was weird because it was still hot enough in Joshua Tree to fry an egg on a rock. Eight nights total in the desert, with a little Channel Island adventure in the middle, and it was finally time to say goodbye. Not just to Joshua Tree, but to California itself. We’ve spent weeks zig-zagging this giant state, and yet we’ve barely scratched the surface. We’ll be back.
Our destination for the day: Lake Havasu City, Arizona. But on our way we saw a sign for Amboy Crater, and of course we stopped — because we can. What’s the point of being semi-retired road nomads if you can’t spontaneously hike a volcano in the middle of the Mojave?
The “trail” was really more of a bike-hike hybrid—ride a few feet, push through sand or lava rocks, ride again, curse, repeat. When we finally got to the crater itself, we ditched the bikes and hiked to the rim. Up there, with the wind whipping through our sweaty hair, I coined a new term: “Usie.” You know, like a selfie, but with both of us. I was pretty proud of myself until I remembered I have children who will 100% inform me that “usie” is already a thing—used exclusively by weird old people.
After our volcano detour, we rolled into our next home sweet home: Craggy Wash, a BLM campsite just outside Lake Havasu City. There were some really nice RV resorts overlooking Havasu lake—palm trees, manicured gravel, electricity. But that's not us, we're Craggy Wash people—which, coincidentally, is both the name of the place and a perfect description of it. But it’s free!
Once we dropped the trailer, we went into town to check out the London Bridge—yes, that London Bridge. Apparently, a guy bought all the land around a man-made lake, realized no one wanted to live there, and thought, “You know what’ll bring people in? A bridge from England!”
So he literally bought the real London Bridge, had it disassembled (and marked) brick by brick, shipped across the ocean, and rebuilt in Arizona. Bold move. Then he had to build a canal to make a penninsula into an island so he'd have somewhere to put his newly acquired bridge. That's vision!
After exploring miniature London and checking out the fancy RV resorts, we found the old downtown and walked it's length, which was buzzing with a vintage car show.
When we opened our camper door the next morning, the first thing we saw after the gorgeous sunrise was a scorpian crawling away from our shoes. We both had an instant flashback to Costa Rica, where George once left his shoes outside and got a “special surprise” in one of them. You’d think we'd learn.
we were up early to beat the heat and ride Havasu’s 17-mile paved bike path, which rather pathetically does not cradle the lake, but parallels the main road through town. Regardless of the lack of scenery, we had a great ride — except for one unfortunate development: George is officially faster than me again. We’re back to our old normal. I can attest that bike rides are slightly less fun when you're the slow one.
Later, we explored the end of Craggy Wash's dusty road to see a miniature labyrinth made out of rocks, took a nature walk by the water, and drove across the London Bridge — just to say we did.
Snow in the morning, scorpions by sunrise, and a British bridge in the desert. Just another totally normal day on the road.
Every story has a soundtrack. But I keep forgetting to add ours. Here's the soundtrack for our adventures in Lake Havasu City:
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