San Marcos, CA to Lake Havasu City, AZ
By Kiran Jayasinghe
We were out of bed by 2:45 a.m. We were up so early because of a two week trip to Arizona, to celebrate our birthdays. We were so excited, we couldn’t sleep. Unfortunately, our mom sent us back to bed. We woke up again at about 4:00 a.m, and got ready for the 5-6 hour drive to Lake Havasu City, the first stop in our trip.
Our goal was to leave the house at 5:00 a.m. Instead, we finally left at 6:15 a.m. It took us a long time to get everything packed. There were seven of us, five in our family, and grandparents. We took the Interstate 15 South to Interstate 8 East. Our first stop was at a Travel Center near Campo, California, where we bought a refreshing hot chocolate and some delicious roasted peanuts.
After doing a few jumping jacks to stretch our legs, we hopped back in the van and continued on the Interstate 8 east, until we arrived at the Desert View Tower and Boulder Park, in Jacumba, California (B on map, desertviewtower.com).
We got to see through a telescope in the Desert View Tower, ($6.50 per person to climb the tower), and then climbed through a rock maze at the Boulder Park.
There were a number of animals carved out of stone. Part of the rock maze was so narrow, our mom nearly got stuck!
After the Desert View Tower we headed east on interstate 8. Our next stop was at the Imperial Sand Dunes just before we crossed into Arizona (C on map). We did not spend much time at the dunes. Apparently these dunes were formed from sands of an old lake called Lake Cahuilla. The Dunes are about 40 miles long and 5 miles wide, and they are moving south eastwards at the rate of about 12 inches every 100 years. We got back on to interstate 8 east, and just past Yuma, Arizona, got on to Arizona highway 95 going north.
After some more driving, we stopped in Quartzsite, AZ (D on map) to stretch our legs, get some gas for the van, and to buy some Doritos, and Cheetos. We finally arrived in Lake Havasu City at about 4 in the afternoon, and checked in at the Day’s Inn.
Although the Days Inn was not the prettiest, the rooms were clean and fairly comfortable. The rooms had two beds, a microwave and a refrigerator. There was a hot tub and a small pool at this location. The room came with free breakfast. After we settled in we went and soaked in the hot tub for 15 minutes before we had dinner. We came up with a five-star rating system, and we gave the Day’s Inn three stars.