Arizona’s “Junior Grand Canyon”

Why does life need a soundtrack? I wonder this all the time because, as you’ve probably noticed, you can’t buy groceries, shop for clothes, pump gas, eat a meal, ride an elevator or even go to the bathroom without some sort of musical accompaniment. Why is that? Are the designers of public spaces worried about what will happen if we are left alone with our thoughts? Do they suppose that we don’t have thoughts?

Or is it that people think we need music in order to conjure up the appropriate emotions for a given situation? This thought came to mind last week when my husband Mike and I were visiting my family in Arizona, and we took a short sightseeing cruise with my dad. We had just taken our seats aboard the Dolly Steamboat for an hour and a half nature cruise around Canyon Lake when the peaceful sound of paddlewheel against water was drowned out by Enya’s 1988 hit “Orinoco Flow.” Booming out of the boat’s crackling speakers, the song was both fittingly epic and completely cheesy in a not altogether disagreeable way. But why not enjoy the sounds of nature on the nature cruise? we groused to each other.

Canyon Lake (imagine Enya playing)

 Touted on the brochure as Arizona’s “Junior Grand Canyon,” Canyon Lake feels like an almost surreal oasis in the middle of the otherwise rocky, dry and cactus-filled Sonoran Desert. And it is, really, since the man-made lake was formed in 1925 when the Mormon Flat Dam trapped water from the Salt River. The steep canyon walls are the main attraction on the tour, and the boat’s captain explained how many of the rock formations we could see were the result of volcanic eruptions dating back as far as 15 million years. We brought along binoculars, hoping to see some bald eagles but, instead, we spotted several bighorn sheep defying gravity as they made their way along the face of the cliffs.

That’s one tough saguaro cactus growing out of that rock. Can you spot the bighorn sheep?

Canyon Lake is one of four man-made lakes along the Salt River. Located about 15 miles up the Apache Trail, it was traveled by Apache Indians before becoming a stagecoach route through the Superstition Mountains. As we drove to the boat cruise, my dad told the story of how my family once tried to hike the trail. It was 1970, not long after we had moved to Phoenix from Indianapolis when I was five and my sister was three. It takes awhile to understand how dangerous the desert can be, so like a lot tourists and newcomers to Arizona, our family set off on a hike up the difficult trail with no water or food, imagining we’d be back to the car in an hour or two. Eight hours later, thanks to the kindness of strangers, we made it out of the mountains hungry and thirsty but otherwise unscathed. 

Me, mom, little sister and cactus in 1970.

I’ve said it before and I’ll surely say it too many times to count again: I hate the desert. It’s hot, dry and full of things capable of hurting or killing you. I can’t recall a single Girl Scout camping trip that didn’t involve at least one incident of sobbing due to an attack by cactus, usually cholla, which you don’t even have to touch. As I recall, segments of the dreadful plant seemed to just “jump” off onto our synthetic Girl Scout knee socks if we so much as churned up the breeze as we passed. Prickly pear, barrel cactus, scorpions, rattle snakes, javelinas, tarantulas, coyotes—these were the things nightmares were made of following troop leaders’ warnings about the dangers of the desert. All that before we’d even pitched our tents.

Still, sitting on the deck of the Dolly Steamboat last week, I couldn’t help but enjoy the view from afar. If you visit Arizona, I’d highly recommend the trip, though you might want to bring your iPod or a good pair of noise-canceling headphones.