Since this is my first blog about the great U.S. Scavenger Hunt, I would like to explain myself. I feel one of the ways you can tell a seasoned traveler is by the souvenirs they buy and collect. I feel all travelers have the phase where they collect items from the Hard Rock Cafes (myself included, I still get guitar pins in any locations I have yet to get a pin from, and my friends get me "city symbols" from cities I have not been to), or EVERY t-shirt they can get their hands on, or even those state magnets you see in truck stops, in hopes of building a full US map on their fridge.
At some point on this blog I want to talk about those collections, which are amazing, but they seem to be a collection you go after. It becomes the destination, rather than a trinket. You find you take trips to get those items, you make special arrangements around getting those items. You take stops to Hard Rock Cafes you never would have made had you not been collecting the pins, a sin I am guilty of time and time again. However I feel the more you travel, the more you find yourself going to places and hoping to find cool things once you get there.
It is from that kind of travel that I have had the idea for years for the Great U.S. Scavenger Hunt. I always wanted to put together a list of really odd souvenirs that would become the goal for a new group of travelers that have been weened on video games and World of Warcraft achievements and NEED a token to go after. I feel there is no reason to hand every travel collection souvenir dollar to one bar, or build a collection of items you could literally go to one truck stop and collect. Rather I would like to see a list of items that are diverse, and interesting, and in a perfect world support people not huge corporations, not that I am not willing to support a corporation if the item is cool enough, but I think you get my point.
Lets begin this item off with a story. The original London Bridge, the one from the song "London Bridge is falling down" has long since been removed from London, and is in the middle of the desert in Lake Havasu, AZ. Take a second to take that in, the first time I read that it took me a few minutes to get my head around it, to this moment I am stunned that this is a true statement. I feel like things like bridges either are where they started, or they aren't. When the Tacoma Narrows bridge shook to pieces it was not then moved to Cairo, it was destroyed. This is how I felt bridges worked, that has always seemed very clear to me. But this is how you take a city in the desert and make it a tourist attraction, you move something no one knew you could move.
Here is picture of the bridge my fiancee Rachael Yost took while we were in Lake Havasu at the bridge. It's a little hard to see, but the bridge flies both the US and the British flag.
As the story goes Robert McCulloch the founder of Lake Havasu city purchased the bridge from the City of London for $2,460,000.00 in 1968 and at a cost of $4,500,000.00 had it moved to Arizona, where celebrated its grand opening in 1971. This in itself seems to be the most American thing ever. You go to another country, admire a structural part of their heritage, hear it's in disrepair, then offer to buy it from them. When they finally say yes, you spend nearly twice as much as you paid for said piece of infrastructure to move it to the random place in the world you feel it will "just look perfect".
And where is the "perfect place?" Well the f'in desert that's where, because putting this MULTI TON BRIDGE on the coast would be too easy! This to me is the kind of story that I feel makes Americans both loved and hated throughout the world. Every story in Vegas from the 50's and 60's of some oil tycoon heading to the craps table with a suitcase full of hundred bills, every story of a moonshiner supplying the speakeasies, Howard Hughes buying every airplane in the west and painting them yellow all seem to slightly pale in comparison in my eyes to something like this. I may never see something this crazy done in my lifetime, unless Richard Branson buys the Eiffel Tower and moves it to the moon, an act that will prove the Americans are even slipping in the crazy rich guy department.
This is the reason on my last trip to Vegas my friends and I felt we had to see this, if for nothing else but to know every time we hear "London Bridge is falling down" we will know we were there. The London Bridge crosses Lake Havasu and at the base of the bridge is a replica of an English village that I bet was in bad shape but still functioning in the late 80's, but at this point it is borderline terrifying. I have a feeling if we had stopped there at night, I would have felt like we were going to be killed off one by one by some mass murderer in a Bobby's uniform. However, during the day it is just in poor shape and a bit of a shame, but not at all scary.
As you enter the village you are greeted by statues that appear to be dragons that have placards that talk about the city of London. To your right you will notice hidden in plain sight the office of the rotary club for the London Bridge, Lake Havasu, AZ. In that office you will find the first item on the Great U.S. Scavenger Hunt, the "Havasu Dollar". The London Bridge Rotary Club has been putting this coin out since 1971 and they make a new one every year. It seems the first few just had the bridge on them, but the last few years they have celebrated all kinds of things, the coin I picked up was from 2004-2005 and commemorated the 100th year of Rotary and for some reason Route 66. Some of the things on the coins make little sense to me, but I think that is part of its charm in my eyes. The profit supports the London Bridge Rotary, a group I hope eventually gets the English village in better repair. So not only do you get a very cool knick knack, but the money goes to a civic group, and your money could end up in much worse places.
The bridge is something to see, and if the story I was told by the lady from the Rotary is true, is hollow. Apparently the bridge was a solid bridge in London, but when it was brought to Lake Havasu it was rebuilt hollow and the spare stone was sold all over the world for headstones. Just when you thought the story could not get better the fine folks at the Rotary up the ante for you...it's so fantastically American.
This my friends is the first item on the Great U.S. Scavenger Hunt...the "Havasu Dollar".
This picture is the current "Havasu Dollar" the London Bridge Rotary has up on their site. If you are just a coin collector and not a traveler there is an opportunity to buy them from the Rotary off of their website.
If there is a souvenir you think is amazing and needs to be a part of the Scavenger Hunt please write me and let me know, I love to hear about this kind of stuff, I feel this is this the kind of project that will take the work of a lot of adventurers to put together.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to send your comments, suggestions and "Scavenger Hunt" items to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
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