Lake Havasu City, Arizona

We spent yesterday exploring the Lake Havasu area a bit. Here’s what we learned…

Parker Dam

Lake Havasu is created by the damming of the Colorado River at Parker Dam which is about 150 miles downstream from Hoover Dam. The Parker Dam was built in the mid-1930’s and is “the deepest dam in the world”. It is 320 feet,  with 235 of those feet situated below the riverbed.

Here’s the up river side of the dam:

The dam’s primary function is to create a reservoir and to generate hydroelectric power.

Lake Havasu can store 647,000 acre feet of water which is over 210 billion gallons. The lake is the water source for the Central Arizona Project Aqueduct which provides water for irrigated agricultural areas and municipal water for several Arizona communities, including the metropolitan areas of Phoenix and Tucson.

Back Country Byway

Much of the road on the California side of the Colorado River below the Parker Dam is  Back Country Byway. I had never heard of the term, so, of course, I Googled it.

BLM Back Country Byways serve a unique niche in providing an “off-the-beaten-path” adventure through landscape settings as diverse as the West itself. The BLM currently manages 54 BLM-designated National Back Country Byways totaling approximately 2,952 miles in 11 western states. Learn More.

The drive was very scenic and I’ll definitely be looking for more Back Country Byways…

Patriots and Bible Thumpers

One of the interesting things I noticed on the drive was that on the California side of the Colorado River, we passed about a dozen crosses. They were spaced out along the drive and placed atop mountains and/or rock formations. 

On the Arizona side of the river, there were about a dozen American flags, also spaced out along the drive and placed atop mountains and/or rock formations. (Hard to see in this picture, but it’s there.)

So it almost felt like a Hatfield and McCoys situation only with Patriots and Bible Thumpers… 🙂

Some random shots of our drive.