Hot in the East, hot in the West

Grandpa visited last weekend. We visited London Bridge at Lake Havasu on Saturday, Old Tucson Studios on Sunday, and ate lots in between.

Grandpa pulled into town a little later than expected Friday night and after a little confusion finding me in my apartment complex, we went out to dinner. After dinner, we tried to find a suitable hotel for Grandpa to stay at. We came across the Windermere after we found that the local Super 8 did not have movie channels available. If any of you were to come visit me while I'm here, the Windermere is the place to stay. Nice swimming pool and breakfast is included - and i don't mean just a muffin and a newspaper. Breakfast had cereal, juices, milk, water, bagels, pastries, DIY waffles, etc...I ate there with Grandpa Saturday and Sunday morning.

After breakfast on Saturday, we headed out to Lake Havasu to see London Bridge and the stores below it. Sometimes when you set a navigation system to calculate a route based on shortest distance rather than shortest time, it can take you on some funny roads. We ended up on a totally wrong highway with instructions to cross mountains on a tiny dirt road for 50 miles. While that technically would have been the shortest route, it certainly wasn't the most efficient. And I'm pretty sure the Malibu wasn't going to withstand that kind of abuse.

By the time we figured out we were going to have to take a different route, we were half way along a loop that was going to force us to either backtrack and catch a different highway or continue on to another highway. We pressed on and eventually found that our side trip cost us 1.5 hours extra, making the trip 5+ hours, I think. Oh well.

London Bridge was neat to see and in enjoyed walking below and seeing the shops. Unfortunately, it was blazing hot that day. The trip from one shop to the next was almost unbearable. Fortunately, we found a place with yummy root beer floats. Grandpa wanted to buy me a souvenir, but all I found were a couple neat postcards which ended up in the trunk where, I suppose, they remain. Grandpa was disappointed that I didn't want anything else, but I made up for it the next day.

After all the excitement, Grandpa handed the keys over to me and I drove home...on roads better traveled.

Dinner was at a truck stop in Tonopah, Arizona. Grandpa had some tough steak and I had an okay mexican plate.

The next day, after another wonderful (read free) breakfast at the hotel, we drove a couple hours to Old Tucson Studios. I thought it looked neat from seeing their website, but it was even neater. We saw a stunt show, a movie about John Wayne and the movies he made at Old Tucson Studios, can-can dancers, an entertaining miracle elixir show, and a gunfight in the street just before we left. In between, there was BBQ beef sandwiches, lots of facades used in movies, displays of all kinds of stuff from the Old West, a lemonade slushy, and smelly horses.

Grandpa got me a hat (above) before we left, which came in handy the next weekend at the Grand Canyon. Again, I drove home. We had dinner back in Mesa at IHOP and we parted ways soon after. Grandpa stayed another night in Mesa before heading back to California and me back to work.