Dolly Steamboat

The day before we left Arizona we took a ride around Canyon Lake on the Dolly Steamboat.  Just before we arrived at the lake, we stopped at this vista point.

Canyon Lake was formed following the construction of Mormon Flat Dam in 1925 by the USDL Bureau of Reclamation.  The Salt River Project manages the dam for water storage and power generation. Water stored in this reservoir is collected from the 13,000 square mile Salt River watershed.

 

Recreation opportunities at Canyon Lake include fishing, hiking, swimming, picnicking, boating and water-sports.  Narrated nature tours, like the one we went on, are offered a few times a day and a dinner cruise is available in the evening.

Adam and Charlotte had a great time playing with this wheel while waiting to board Dolly.

The Dolly Steamboat.  As we left the dock, we listened to (you guessed it) Hello Dolly!  What was even funnier was that they played the theme music from the Titanic movie several times during the cruise. 

The Mormon Dam is 224 feet high and 380 feet long. Canyon Lake is 10 miles long, 142 feet deep with a shoreline of 28.3 miles.

During our cruise we saw two bald eagles flying up to their nest.  One of the eagles chased away a hawk and had a small animal in its talons.  The nest was quite a distance away from us and it took every bit of zoom on my camera to see the eagle in the nest. Click on the image for a larger view.

 

Numerous caves are visible in the rocks and some are home to hundreds of bats. 

 

Charlotte was not impressed with the life jacket she had to wear and I do not blame her one bit. It was so bulky that she could not reach her mouth to take a bite of her toast.  By the end of the 90 minute tour she was worn out.