24 October

Lake Havasu City AZ

“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is a quote attributed to the 'Rat Pack' - Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jnr. and Joey Bishop. We saw them at the Plaza in Downtown Las Vegas (or four guys who sounded and looked like them). A great show. Beyond that, we won a few and lost more than a few... that's what Vegas is all about.

We back-tracked a bit today to pick up some of Route 66 that we missed as a result of our detour to the Grand Canyon etc. As it turned out, we had seen this part of the Mother Road on a previous US trip, but it was still an interesting drive.

London Bridge is what drew us to Lake Havasu. You know, the one that was 'falling down' in the nursery rhyme. Some crazy, with more money than sense, packed it on a ship and hauled it all the way to the Arizona desert. It cost more to haul it and re-assemble it than it did to buy it! What the hell? It looks great here - probably better than it did in London.

We are almost back in LA, our starting point. On arrival, our first task was to purchase a new GPS system. Our old 'Navgirl' – read Navman - was getting a bit long in the tooth (in tech years!) and the price on these things is just crazy cheap in the US compared with Australia. 'Tomasina', our new TomTom GPS, has been great, BUT, every now and then she comes out with some show-stoppers. Our day was going well today until 'she' prophetically informed us, that ...

“You can not avoid your final destination”.

That threw a grey cloud over our day!!