I don’t often mark the passing of notables as I write in my Travel Tuesday journal but upon Gordon Lightfoot’s passing on May 1, I learned that Highway 74, a route we often drove to a couple of our favorite places in Arizona, is the same Carefree Highway that Mr. Lightfoot made famous in his song.

Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream
I wonder how the old folks are tonight?
Her name was Ann
And I’ll be damned if I recall her face
She left me not knowing what to do

For some reason, I never made the connection in my mind that the highway name was Mr. Lightfoot’s inspiration. Coincidentally, “Carefree Highway” was the second single released from his 1974 album, Sundown. It peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent one week at No. 1 on the Easy Listening chart in October 1974.

Carefree highway
Let me slip away on you
Carefree highway
You’ve seen better days
The morning after blues
From my head down to my shoes
Carefree highway
Let me slip away, slip away on you

In 2021, on our most recent visit to Lake Pleasant Regional Park, we met friends and family there to ride the back roads around Lake Pleasant in a Can Am. The photos accompanying this post are mostly from this journey near the Carefree Highway. Other photos are from previous hikes on trails that meander through the park.

Turning back the pages to the times I love best
I wonder if she’ll ever do the same?
Now the thing that I call living
Is just being satisfied
With knowing I got no one left to blame

The song “Carefree Highway” is a wistful ballad that reflects on the past and the memories that we carry with us. It is often interpreted as a reflection on the ups and downs of a romantic relationship. The Carefree Highway serves as a symbol of the freedom and independence that the singer longs for.

Carefree highway
I’ve got to see you my old flame
Carefree highway
You’ve seen better days
The morning after blues
From my head down to my shoes
Carefree highway
Let me slip away, slip away on you

I have my own Gordon Lightfoot story in my hometown of Fargo, North Dakota. One afternoon we were having a late lunch at a nearby McDonald’s restaurant. We were just about finished when a middle-aged woman approached Lynn and me at our table. She asked, “Do you know who Gordon Lightfoot is?”

When I responded in the affirmative, she asked if we knew that Gordon Lightfoot was performing in a Fargo venue that evening. We were aware of it but hadn’t really considered whether or not to go to the concert. She went on, “Our parents were planning to attend this evening, but they are going to have to go home earlier than planned. They have two tickets they aren’t going to be able to use. If you’d like them, they are yours, no charge.”

Searching through the fragments
Of my dream shattered sleep
I wonder if the years have closed her mind?
I guess it must be wanderlust or trying to get free
From the good old faithful feeling we once knew

It didn’t take me long to accept the tickets graciously and that evening we spent the time listening to Gordon Lightfoot singing renditions of his many hits including “Carefree Highway.”

Carefree highway
Let me slip away on you
Carefree highway
You’ve seen the better days
The morning after blues
From my head down to my shoes
Carefree highway
Let me slip away, slip away on you
Let me slip away on you

The inspiration for this Travel Tuesday journal entry came from a Facebook post published by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT). The post notes Mr. Lightfoot’s passing with a link to an article on the ADOT blog here. It links the song to the highway which in truth is only a section of Arizona Highway 74, the easternmost stretch that terminates in the town of Carefree.

Carefree highway
I’ve got to see you my old flame
Carefree highway
You’ve seen better days
The morning after blues
From my head down to my shoes
Carefree highway
Let me slip away, slip away on you

Lyrics courtesy of a Gordon Lightfoot fan site here.

For those who doubt the relationship between the song and the highway, in the moments before he begins singing “Carefree Highway”, he mentions his trip to Phoenix and the reminder he wrote as they passed the Carefree Highway signs on I-17 and how he almost left the note in the rental car.

The connection between the Carefree Highway in Arizona and the Gordon Lightfoot song of the same name has made the road a popular destination for music lovers and road trip enthusiasts alike. Many people who visit the area make a point of driving along the Carefree Highway and listening to the song as they go.

Rest in peace, Mr. Lightfoot.

John Steiner

Lake Pleasant, Arizona.

On this first week of Autumn in North Dakota, it’s been nice weather, so far. However, thoughts of our Arizona winters are creeping into consciousness and those desert hikes are calling. I even have a new camera, a mirrorless Sony with a very small footprint and weight factor. It will replace the much larger and heavier Nikon on our hikes. But I digress… more on that new toy in a future post. Since this post is Cellpic Sunday, I can only use a mobile device… OK so that camera could be called a mobile device… but so could my Nikon. Seriously, the image above was captured with my Samsung smartphone. It was taken in December 2015 and never before published. You see, since acquiring my new, much smaller camera, I haven’t used my cellphone much for photos as I’m trying to learn the new camera.

About the photo: I went through my galleries of desert photos to feature a cell pic that I haven’t processed. This view of Lake Pleasant was captured from the Pipeline Canyon Trail, one of my favorite hikes in the park. No doubt it will be on our list of hikes in 2018 (if not sooner)… In some browsers, you can click on the image to enlarge it.

John Steiner

Morristown, Arizona

On the north end of the Phoenix metro area you will find an embankment dam on the Agua Fria River. The New Waddell Dam provides recreation, electric power and flood protection to the Phoenix area. Completed in 1994, the reservoir behind the large dam is known as Lake Pleasant. That is not the beginning of the story for Lake Pleasant, however. The Agua Fria River played a part in the development of the area as a major source of water in the desert. According to a post on the North Phoenix Blog here, the first dam on the river was built in the 1890s. That dam didn’t survive more than a year; however in the 1920s a group of farmers raised enough funds to build a permanent dam to create Lake Pleasant. Eventually, the Carl Pleasant Dam was renamed the Waddell Dam. That dam still exists, however it is submerged in the lake after construction of the much larger New Waddell Dam that was built down-river.

Our first visit to the area in 2012 introduced us to the Pipeline Canyon Trail, listed as a moderately difficult trail, there is an interesting floating footbridge crossing a small section of water that has filled a former wash. In the last couple of years, however, the Lake Pleasant Regional Park facility added several new trails. This week, our friend, Leenie, my wife Lynn, and I hiked our first trip on the Wild Burro Trail. The short, two-mile (3.2 km) trail is labeled “Easy”, and except for a minor elevation change at the north end of the trail, this hike is truly a walk in the park. As you can see by the trail map below, the trail skirts a couple of small bays on the west edge of the reservoir. We hiked the length of the trail and turned around, hiking the entire 4 miles (6.4 km) in under two hours. There is even a parking area with rest rooms at the north trailhead, and another public restroom facility at 1.6 miles (2.6 km) south.

Though the New Waddell Dam is on the Agua Fria River, the reservoir is also a water storage area for water from the Colorado River via the Central Arizona Project Aqueduct. The park is composed of over 23,000 acres (93 sq km) including both water and land areas. The gallery of images included here features images that were all taken on our hike along the Wild Burro Trail. I understand there are wild burros in the park, however, on this trip we didn’t see any. There were, however, several people fishing at the edge of the two bays we walked by. According to one fisherman, the fishing wasn’t so good on the morning we visited.

After our hike, we drove down to the Scorpion Bay Marina and had lunch at Dillon’s Restaurant. We were no more than five minutes from the trailhead to the marina, and the weather was perfect for a lunch at the floating restaurant. Boat and kayak rentals, sailing cruises and other water activities are available at the marina. There is a six-dollar per carload entry fee to the park which will need to be paid even if you only want to visit the marina. As with all desert hiking, bring plenty of water and use sunscreen.

Click on one of the images below to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

John Steiner