Forty miles southwest of Kingman, ten miles from the California border, a detour south brings you to one of the more bizarre sights of the American desert the old gray stone of London Bridge , reaching out to an artificial island across the stagnant waters of the dammed Colorado River at LAKE HAVASU CITY . It has to be said that it looks a hell of a lot better here, with the Chemehuevi Mountains as a backdrop, than it ever did on the River Thames. The resort's developer, Robert P. McCulloch, bought the bridge (under the impression it was Tower Bridge or so the story goes) for 2.4 million dollars in the late 1960s, and painstakingly shipped it across the Atlantic chunk by chunk before reassembling it over a channel dug to divert water from Lake Havasu, creating an island on the other side of the bridge known as Pittsburgh Point.

Among several good-value restaurants is Shugrue's , in the Island Fashion Mall at the end of London Bridge (tel 928/453-1400), which serves fresh fish, salads and pasta.