London Bridge Reincarnated

Travel is recreational and educational.  At its best, travel can take you through a worm hole to a different time and place.  Walking across the London Bridge in Lake Havasu, Arizona, is such an experience.  If it hadn't been for a crazy rich guy who wanted to lure people to his new retirement development, who knows what would have happened to this beautiful old bridge.  It was, after all, falling down.

Who cares if it was a public relations gimmick.  Who cares that it was really the second London Bridge built in 1831 and not really that old by European standards.  It still crossed the River Thames at one time and its history is filled with centuries of gore.  At its southern gate in the Middle Ages, the heads of traitors were dipped in tar and impaled on spikes for the world to see.  Among its most famous were the heads of Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell.  

Unfortunately, the new bridge began to sink into the river and by 1924, the east side was a good four inches lower than the west.  The engineers who built it did not foresee the weight of 20th century traffic.  Enter Robert McCulloch who bought it from the City of London in the 1960's,  had it meticulously dismantled and shipped to Arizona via the Panama Canal.  At Long Beach, the stones were put on trucks and hauled to Arizona.  The bridge was reinforced with concrete and has been reincarnated into a modern version of its ancient self.

I think McCulloch did an excellent job.  The old bridge blends so well with the new city on Lake Havasu.  My travel buddy and I spent a night at the London Bridge Resort and traveled through that worm hole crossing centuries and oceans, from the gritty, dark, historical city of London back again to sunny, warm modern day Arizona.  Now that is traveling!