Most of the bike riders playing around  on the track looked to be in their early teens. That's a good age to learn to do this stuff because you haven't developed a fear of death yet.

This kid, I'm guessing is about 12 years old, is doing what is known as a "whip" and when done properly during a jump, your front wheel will be facing straight down the track like it's supposed to, but you and the rest of your motorcycle will be cross-ways in the track like it's definitely NOT supposed to be.

Now if you land that way you and your motorcycle may become permanently attached to one another, the trick is to get back straight again before you hit the ground.

I didn't do anything of interest today, it was too windy. So I didn't write a blog post, there's only captions for the pictures.

This little girl looks like she's around three years old. With all the armor she's wearing I wouldn't know she was a girl except I heard her parents calling her name.

I don't know how she holds her head up as big as that helmet is. But she was going around the track looking like she was enjoying herself.

By the way there were several different race tracks, kids this age were on the kitty track.

With the motorcycles I had as a kid you didn't dare come off the jump and land on your front wheel. Your front shocks would compress and bottom out, which would send you flying over the handlebars, and they would be picking up pieces of you for the next three days.

But the shocks are so good on these new bikes you can hit anyway but upside down and still survive.

Three things have completely changed motocross racing and off-road motorcycle riding in general since I was a kid.

The motorcycles have gotten a lot better in every way. Their lighter, way more powerful, better suspension, and more inexpensive for what you get.

Parents that enjoy off-road motorcycles are putting their tiny little kids on dirt bikes. I'm not sure when that started but maybe it had something to do with Tiger Woods playing golf when he was a little bitty kid and becoming the best player in the world, so parents thought that starting them young was the key to creating a sports champion. But the outcome was if a kid starts a sport early, and enjoys it, they can become really good at a very early age.

This phenomenon caused motorcycle manufacturers to start building motorcycles for kids of different ages. It's a chicken or the egg scenario. Did motorcycle manufacturers build tiny motorcycles so parents would put their tiny kids on them. Or did parents want motorcycles for their tiny kids. I don't know which one it was but these are some the smallest motorcycles I've ever seen.

This little guy was amazing, he could out ride me when I was at my best, and he looks like he's six or seven years old. Back in the day, a kid that young wouldn't be able to do this because even the small motorcycles were way too big. But now if you've got the money there's a motorcycle sized just perfect for a kid of every age.

I can't tell if this is a look of determination or desperation.

Seeing those kids out on the track having fun, made me want to unload my little Beta 250, and show those young whippersnappers how to ride......NOT!! These kids would run over me and use my bones for traction.

How old is this kid? Three? Four? I'm not sure I could even ride a tricycle at her age. The tires on her motorcycle are only about a foot tall.

Not only could this not happen when I was young, I don't think anybody could've conceived it would ever happen. Kids this age were still playing in a sandbox not  riding a motorized vehicle.

I think the development of all the safety gear they use has helped parents to  overcome the fear factor of putting their kid on a motorcycle.

The kids themselves have no fear. The teenagers I watched were doing things that would make Evil Knievel wet his pants.

             theboondork

I think I'm going to stick around Lake Havasu for another week or so. I had originally figured on staying in Lake Havasu for a few days as a brief rest stop on my way to Laughlin Nevada, but I haven't seen any evidence of hordes of college students coming in so far. I'm pretty comfortable here, and I'm in no hurry to get anywhere else anyway, and since I'm going to be boondocking in a casino parking lot, there's no hurry for me to get there.

Since I've been here, it's been cloud-free blue skies the whole time, but starting early next week, we're supposed to get some cloudy weather for at least several days. Not a lot of clouds, so they shouldn't have any effect on keeping my batteries charged up, but enough clouds to make taking pictures more interesting, and at least a chance of a nice sunrise or sunset, so I might as well stick around.

I spent the morning over at the Sara Park motocross track watching the motorcycle guys practice. I like watching these kids ride, their so much better riders than we were when I was their age. I haven't had a chance to look at the pictures I took yet, but if any of them turned out okay, I'll put them on the blog tomorrow.

                                              theboondork

This is either a guided boat tour of the London Bridge, or it's an old geezer boat race, and they forgot  which way to go.

If a couple locking the lock, and tossing the key into the river means they will be bound together forever, what does it say about a couple that uses a combination lock?

Rooms.....

I decided I would do a black and white picture with a strange name that's evocative of the very sophisticated European film noir motif and add some class to my blog.... And I think its working, I feel a lot more sophisticated already.

The terrain around here is some of the most rugged you will find anywhere. Throw in some Rattlesnakes during the summer, and its not a place for the faint of heart.

I drove into town this morning to take some pictures of the London Bridge before things got crowded. I also refilled one of my propane tanks at $2.69 a gallon, and took a Walmart grocery bag of trash to Sara Park to throw away. Sara Park has trash cans and dumpsters everywhere, so getting rid of my trash while boondocking in my current spot is as easy as going across the street.

I poked around, over, and under, the London Bridge for a while, marveling at the time and effort it must've taken to disassemble this gigantic stone bridge piece by piece, take it 5000 miles to the middle of the Arizona desert and reassemble it a piece at a time in the Arizona heat.

I don't know if this undertaking was self-financed or if Bob McCullough had to get some investors. Still, I sure would've liked to have seen the faces of the businessmen that he was asking to invest in this venture, as he explained to them his plan to turn this barren desert into a thriving city by building a bridge where there was no water. The bridge started from nowhere and went nowhere, but he would bring water to it and create places for it to come from and go to in one of the harshest climates and most desolate locations in the entire country.

 I wonder who was the first businessman that said...." That's a great idea! Count me in. here's a check for a million bucks; go find a bridge."

                                       theboondork

I found this old picture on the Internet of the London Bridge being reassembled at Lake  Havasu. It's hard to imagine anyone believing this was going to work. I would think some of the construction workers were laughing themselves silly while cashing their paychecks.

It's a beautiful bridge, and unlike modern bridges it has character. And its many bullet holes courtesy of the German Luftwaffe during World War II, just add to that character.

This is one of the big hotels near London Bridge. Everything in the area of the bridge has a British theme, so if you have a hankering for a Toad in the Hole, this might just be your place

There's not a whole lot of places in the country that you can pretty regularly sit outside in late February and have breakfast.